death at small doors (Thriller)

Death at small corners
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INTRODUCTION

This is the first volume of a sequence which began in the early 1980s and reached volume 5 in the early 2000s. The occasional nature of the books has created the interesting distortion of a story spread over two or three years of 'story' time set against a background of the changing technology and attitudes of a couple of decades.
No doubt the author could rework the sequence to position it in a particular decade of the 20th or 21st Century, but he has too much else to do and he can't be bothered. "Let the reader quibble if the discontinuities upset him", Mr. Smith says, "but don't expect me to take any notice."

"Death is like a fisherman, who traps fish in his net and leaves them for a while in the water; the fish is still swimming, but the net is around him, and the fisherman will draw him up -- when he thinks fit."
Ivan Sergeyevich Turgenyev

1. Players

It was a very tight shot, and Lenny Suskin knew that he would get very few clear chances. Lying in a pool of deepest black shadow, he tried to ignore the sweat rolling off his body and took another pull from his water-bottle. Small dust devils, desiccated by the raging African sun, twirled in deserted side-streets. A cheering throng lined the broad main road through the capital city. Suskin could just see the centre of the reviewing stand. He was lying on a rooftop three hundred and fifty yards away, aiming through a narrow slit formed by two taller buildings at the edge of the square.
In its initial form, the job had seemed very attractive. The president-for-life of the one-party state had wanted an assassination attempt to boost his flagging popularity. Suskin had been warned that the country's security forces would not be informed of the arrangement; which was why he had insisted on a fee of one hundred thousand pounds, all paid in advance. And then the hints had started. What if he went for a head-shot instead of hitting the president's bullet-proof jacket? Suskin had played along with the lighthearted suggestions, but his own hints that a kill would cost another hundred grand, also in advance, had not been taken up.
Soon after accepting the contract, he had started to pick up whispers. Villages in remote areas were being encouraged to buy community television sets on generous terms. The capital's main court-house was being tarted up. The country's Chief Justice had cancelled a holiday up-country due to begin right after the Independence Day celebrations. It did not take a genius to work out that there was a show trial in the offing: with a white face in the dock. Thus Suskin had made two sets of arrangements for getting into and out of the country, one of which had been leaked to his clients. The second set had brought him to his firing position on the afternoon of the Young Pioneers' Parade, two days before Independence Day.
Another group of diminutive marchers in dark green uniforms reached the reviewing stand. The president, looking slightly bulkier than usual in a uniform with a double Ramtex lining, lifted a meaty hand to the scrambled egg on his cap. A cheer from the crowd drowned the shot. With a look of utter amazement on his fleshy face, the president spun half round and dived into the inviting lap of an admiral's plump wife, who was sitting directly behind him.
Suskin slung the rifle on his back and hurried across the roof. He threw a coiled rope into space and abseiled forty feet down the side of the building to his waiting motorbike. A roar of anger from the square seemed to be triggered by the pressure of his thumb on the electric starter. The crowd had just realized that the attempt to assassinate its beloved president had failed, and shock had turned to rage.
A helicopter had climbed into the painfully blue sky by the time Suskin reached the outskirts of the capital city. The shanty town was deserted. Its inhabitants had turned out to watch the parade, drawn by rumours of free beer afterwards. Suskin stopped in the shade of a hut made of flattened tins and polythene sheeting. Resting his rifle against the edge of the low roof, he sighted up at the helicopter. His second shot crippled the tail rotor, putting the machine into what the United States Army termed a 'zero survivability situation.' As the machine spun in helpless circles on its plunge to destruction, Suskin roared out into the bush. Within minutes, he was surrounded by parched scrubland and the city was dwindling like a vision behind him.
He tacked left, right, and left again to take an easier path on crumbling ground to the crest of a steep hill. There was a ball of dust heading in his approximate direction, and several more could be seen radiating out from the city. Some bright spark had decided to send troops to cover the half-dozen stretches of flat, uncluttered ground within easy reach of the city in case the assassin had planned a quick getaway by air. Suskin had a fair lead, but he had to reach his pick-up point before one of the old-fashioned but still lethal jets of the minute but still deadly air force could be scrambled.
Half a mile from the landing-strip, he noticed a ball of dust converging from his left. Another helicopter had spotted him and it had vectored in a force from one of the garrison outposts. Suskin's pilot had started his engines and was beginning to drift along the dusty, reddish strip. Suskin ducked out of the rifle, letting it bounce away. He overtook the aircraft, then laid the bike down and skidded to a stop.
A black wing passed over his head. Suskin pushed to his feet and scrambled through the choking dust cloud raised by the quickening propellors. He jumped and squirmed aboard the aircraft. Its wheels were off the ground by the time he had reached the vacant right-hand seat in the cockpit and found the ends of the belt. Snaking gently to increase the volume of his dust cloud, the pilot flashed white teeth in a bronzed face as he grinned at his passenger.
"Nearly missed the bus, Lenny," he chuckled. He was a South African known only as Boz, who had a reputation for always getting his clients home. "Give them a good show?"
"Not quite the one some of them wanted, but good enough," Suskin replied with a nod.
"Hell of a way to earn your living," added the pilot. "If those monkeys had got a little closer, man, they'd have been cutting your fingers off one by one to get the money back. After the trial."
Suskin pulled the ring of a chilled can of beer to lay the dust in his throat. "Well, there's only two ways to make a lot of money these days," he decided. "Win the football pools or take a few risks."
If the jets did not get them, and Boz did not hit a tree while flying very low to avoid unfriendly radar; then the risks had been worth while.

Oliver Markham watched the Customs officer with a practised and perfect blend of innocence and anxiety. Markham was dressed casually, but his corduroy suit cut through the damp afternoon with sharp creases. The Customs officer found a toy car and an empty Smarties tube in the back of the Jeep. They confirmed his impression that the owner of the vehicle was a young, married man who had escaped to Holland to recall his lost bachelor days for a weekend. He had already spotted presents suitable for a wife and a boy of two or three; and a bottle of duty-free Scotch for Dad.
Passed as harmless and his luggage chalk-crossed, Markham drove twelve miles to Ipswich and stopped on the third deck of a car-park. Unobserved, he lifted his bulky pullover and released the straps of his body belt. He dumped it under his seat, along with the plastic wallet containing his working passport and the alternative documents for the Jeep. Then he fitted the crook-lock to clutch pedal and steering-wheel and walked to a nearby pub for some lunch.
When he returned, half an hour later, the Jeep's number plates had been changed back to the original ones, and there was an envelope under the seat cushion.
Markham was twenty-four years old and single. He had a rich father who had given up all hope of his son's earning a living in the business world. Olly existed on an allowance; which he sweetened with the payments that he received for importing cocaine worth a total of three to four hundred thousand pounds during the course of an average year.

A windscreen wiper flicked greasy droplets from toughened glass. Detective Sergeant Brian Orwell looked out into a grey autumn afternoon and yawned. He had been called out at five-thirty that morning to look at the aftermath of a break-in at a hi-fi shop. Half a dozen video recorders and the video-club's stock of cassettes had taken a walk. The thieves had done a very neat job on the alarm system after bashing an untidy hole through the wall from the adjoining dress shop. Orwell had been visiting known fences and generally going through the motions of detection all day.
Their adenoidal radio voice asked for a position report. Orwell unhooked the microphone and on the dashboard and relayed the information supplied by his driver, Detective Constable Mitchell. They had caught up to a dirty red van at a set of traffic lights. Suddenly, the van took off and raced into a right turn against the lights. The driver had realized that he had a police car behind him. Mitchell snapped on the siren and followed the van.
Orwell relayed its number and course. Wonder of wonders, a panda car turned out of a side-street and blocked the van's path. It snatched to a halt. The driver went one way, pursued by a uniformed constable. His passenger went the other way, chased by DC Mitchell.
Detective Sergeant Orwell went home at the end of a fourteen-hour day feeling like an exhausted Jack the Lad. The thieves had been driving their haul around all day. Their buyer had become nervous and had told them to hang loose until some of the heat died down. Looking very hard done by, the thieves had stewed in their respective interview rooms, and then admitted four similar raids and divulged the name of their buyer, responding to lingering resentment at his acquiring the heavy end of the proceeds.
The files of unsolved cases were threatening to send the first-floor detectives' office crashing down to ground level. Sheer dumb luck had solved the day's case, not brilliant police work. But being in the right place at the right time had to count for something. Brian Orwell felt entitled to his mild glow of achievement.

A showpiece secretary showed Colin Mulgraham into a starkly efficient fourth-floor office. Bronze-glass excluded the sounds of London's traffic and presented a mirror to potential spies in the building opposite. Mulgraham was Something In The City. He specialized in high-tech, high-risk ventures, and expected high yields. He was twenty-nine years old, exactly the right weight for his height, an expert marksman with bow, rifle, pistol, and shotgun, he played squash ruthlessly and golf from scratch, and he believed in ending a relationship with a woman the moment it began to pall.
The most important elements of his life were novelty and excitement, which he combined in an expensive, dangerous and recklessly illegal hobby, which had become a personal statement.
Marvin T. Wysoky made an entrance from his executive washroom as the visitor reached the easy chairs in the jungle corner of the office. Wysoky looked like a corporate robot which had just been removed from its box, polished to perfection, and released to sell the Vista Video Corporation's products to a potential investor.
Lavishly printed brochures on art paper had been scattered to maximum effect on the glass-topped coffee-table. VVC was developing large screen, flat televisions for wall-mounting, which were a step towards a screen capable of showing Cinemascope films on videocassette in their full glory. Mulgraham took note of the young vice-president's bright and decisive manner, and decided that he had just inhaled a track of corporate cocaine; possibly imported by one of Mulgraham's own team of mules. VVC looked like his kind of company.

2. Royle

The street was hollow: deserted, but full of the noise of the traffic on the main road beyond a row of tired houses. The small car-park beside the white-painted pub was half full, but casual parking kept Royle out. He drove on, and turned into the next side-street. The doors and windows of the houses on his left were filled with breeze blocks. Behind the low, brick wall on his right, a grassy slope rolled down to a three-storey barrack block of flats. When he regained the corner on foot, Royle noticed that someone with a paintbrush had changed the name board on the wall from SIDALL STREET to SODALL STREET; perhaps as an acid comment on the line of soon-to-be demolished houses.
The afternoon was chilly and threatened rain. October had never been one of his favourite months. Royle hurried to the side-door of the pub, expecting to be drenched. He was looking for someone, and his manhunt had turned into a wild-goose chase. A smell of stale beer mixed with cigarette smoke slapped him in the face with a gush of warm, damp air as he opened the door. Royle lit a cigarette and fought back with his own smoke.
He bought a half-pint of bitter and continued his scan. None of the faces or backs looked familiar. He was a long way from his usual haunts, and he had made few acquaintances in the district. His line of business did not encourage friends who might comment on sudden absences and regular trips abroad.
A quick check of two more rooms told him that Joe Potheroe had not dropped in at The Orb for a Wednesday afternoon pint. The chance had been slim, but Royle had nothing better to do. He was short of money, and tracking down Potheroe offered the best hope of restocking his wallet. He had tried phoning his prey's shop, but Mr. Potheroe seemed to be out permanently; if Joe's snooty bitch of an assistant could be believed.
Out and not expected back for some considerable time. It sounded like a tale offered to all creditors.
"Who are you staring at?" challenged a voice.
Royle brought his vision to a focus from a general contemplation of one corner of the room. The speaker was wearing a white suit, pink shirt, black tie, and an ounce or two of gold in the form of a pendant and chunky cuff-links.
"Are you staring at me?" demanded the man in the white suit. He was about Royle's age, mid-twenties, and looked fairly fit.
"I've got better things to do," Royle drawled provocatively.
"Care to go walkies?" suggested the man, tossing his carefully styled blond waves towards the door to the car park.
"Brought your lead?" Royle misunderstood deliberately an invitation to do battle.
"I'll have you," stated White Suit.
"Promises, promises," mocked Royle, wondering whether the flanking pals of Welling's best-dressed man were in a fighting mood too. Rearranging a few faces seemed a good way of working off the frustration of not catching up with Joe Potheroe.
"Olly! There you are!" squealed a female voice.
Two elegant women brushed past Royle to pay court to the man in the white suit, and deflected his thoughts from the stares of an insolent peasant with comical red stripes down the sleeves of his dark blue anorak.
Royle drained his glass of indifferent beer and decided to give up for the day. Joe Potheroe's shop observed Wednesday half-day closing, and the man himself was most likely out and about, swindling some poor sucker. Royle decided to make a nuisance of himself in the shop the following day. Potheroe was sure to come running if the snooty bitch told him that some bolshy sod was demanding money and frightening the customers away.
Customers? Mugs, more like, Royle thought as he left the pub, tugging on his driving gloves. Half of them did not know what they were buying, and the rest paid inflated prices for junk described as antiques.
Wondering whether to take a flask of tea and some sandwiches to make a siege of it, Royle returned to his car. Polystyrene chip trays slid along the pavement like albino tortoises. Loosened by the gusting wind, a slate skittered down the roof of a derelict house and exploded at the kerb. Royle gave himself a pat on the back for being clever enough to park on the opposite side of the road.
An old woman with a pink umbrella and a large, brown leather handbag tottered over to him as he was unlocking his door.
"No consideration, you motorists," she screeched.
Royle ignored her on principle.
"You park right in front of our flats. Never ask permission. You're always in the way."
"In the way of who?" scoffed Royle, opening his door.
The woman struck the roof of his car with her umbrella to underline her point. "Everyone!"
"You can pack that in for a start, you old bag," warned Royle, worried about his bodywork.
"You cheeky young bugger!" The umbrella's second swing was aimed at Royle. "No respect, you kids."
Royle stepped back, out of range, taking the driver's door to its open limit. His persecutor advanced another step and swung at him again, working off old grievances. Royle caught the descending umbrella and twisted. Having freed it from the woman's grasp, he threw it over the car, into the road. He expected the confrontation to end with him reversing his car to the end of the street while the woman retrieved her umbrella. But he had failed to allow for aged stubbornness.
The solid, brown leather handbag came hurtling towards him, flying out to the limit of its strap. Royle stuck out a fist, becoming annoyed. The woman's forearm slammed into the blocking fist. Her handbag flew out of her grasp. She gasped with pain and clutched at her arm with her left hand; then she aimed a kick at his shin. Despite her age, she was full of fight.
Goaded, Royle unleashed a hammering right cross. A shock of satisfaction travelled up his arm to the shoulder. The woman snapped back and toppled over the low wall, like a bundle of old rags, and rolled down the sloping lawn. Royle slid into his car and started the engine. He backed across to the pavement opposite, crunching over the pink umbrella, and made a one-point turn.
There was no arguing with some people.

Oliver Markham brushed a flake of ash from the lapel of his too-perfect white suit as Simone and Janice settled themselves beside him. He was aware of envious eyes taking in his elegant companions. T.J., his driver and bodyguard, lounged to the bar to fetch drinks for the girls. Pernod and lemonade was the fashion of the moment. Olly realized that one pair of eyes was missing. Their owner had been fairly tall, with shortish, dark hair and a sneering face. He had been laughing at Oliver Markham. That was not permitted. Olly nudged his other satellite with a hand-made shoe.
"That fellow in the blue anorak with red stripes. Find out who he is," he ordered.
"Okay," grinned Ryan Naylor, anticipating sport to come. He too lounged over to the bar and beckoned the landlord, who hurried over immediately. Like Olly, Ry had a wealthy and influential father. Unlike Olly, he had money of his own from legitimate sources. "Who was the cheeky sod who tried to pick a fight with Olly?" he asked.
"Never seen him before, Mr. Naylor," returned the landlord. "First time in. He's not from round here."
"You might ask around. See if anyone knows him?" Ry dressed up the order as a polite suggestion.
The landlord's second report confirmed his first. Royle had visited the pub for the first time, and no one knew him. Olly Markham left The Orb with a scowl of frustration on his round face. He waved a brief salute to the girls as they sped away in Simone's salmon pink Aston Martin to do some totally unnecessary shopping. Falling in with his silent mood, T.J. and Ry climbed into Olly's white Mercedes and waited for their leader to decide on the entertainment for the remainder of the afternoon.
"The range, I think," decided Olly, tapping the back of the driver's seat. He liked to spread out in the back.
T.J. turned right across the main road and headed for the Markham estate. Olly's father, Councillor Markham, had done very well for himself. His son lived in a cottage in the grounds of a modest country house and had had a long bunker constructed behind his cottage. Here, he indulged his passion for guns. Ry, in the front passenger seat, turned round to offer Olly a long, slim cigar. He too was a gun-nut. But he was careful never to out-shoot Olly Markham. Olly did not like being bested; or insulted by smart alecs in anoraks with trendy stripes on the sleeves.
A six-mile drive took them from the small town of Welling to the fringes of Race Hill. T.J. turned left between gateless granite columns, and left again almost immediately to park behind the cottage. Concrete steps set into a grassy hump, which ran parallel to the estate's boundary wall, led down to a steel door. Olly produced an oblong of white plastic. It was a credit card-sized, but neither printed nor embossed. He inserted it into a slot in the frame. The door clicked and moved away from him. Lights flickered into life automatically.
T.J. switched on the space heaters to push back the October chill, then collected three pairs of sound-proof ear-muffs from a rack on the left-hand wall. Olly inserted his plastic card into a slot beside the cocktail cabinet. A large panel clicked back and slid to the left. Olly twisted a combination dial, then tugged open a square door.
His hand reached without thought for a Heckler and Koch MP-5 submachine-gun, which one of T.J.'s friends had supplied. Then he changed his mind. "Set up the fast-draw gear, T.J.," he ordered. "Bash open a couple of cans, Ry."
"Okay," said Ry, hiding his disappointment. He loved to fire an automatic weapon and watch the target shred.
"We must keep an eye open for that ill-bred lout," Olly added in a lazy drawl.
"Got plans for him?" suggested Ry, offering a can of lager.
"I think he owes me satisfaction," decided Olly. "I don't suppose he's a gentleman, but I feel entitled to a duel."
"For real? Fast-draw?" gasped Ry eagerly. "Can we get away with it?"
"We'll take him out to the back of beyond for the duel," nodded Olly. "And we can shove him down a hole afterwards. No one will ever find him."
"It's a bit tough on him if he's never fired a gun before," suggested Ry.
Olly shrugged and smiled gently. "He should have thought about that before he insulted me."
"Yeah, I suppose it is his own silly fault," agreed Ry. "What if he won't draw?"
"We'll have to debag the coward at the very least and leave him to find his own way home," grinned Olly.
"At least," approved Ry.
T.J. breathed a silent sigh of relief when he realized that the 'duel' would end only in humiliation for Olly's opponent. He had been hired to keep an eye on Markham Junior. Olly's father admitted that his son and trouble went inevitably together. T.J.'s job included counselling caution; and when that failed, covering up.
Olly was not under permanent observation, however. He was able to make his cocaine smuggling during T.J.'s visits to his family; which included trips to see his brother in Strangeways Prison. The round trip from West Sussex to Manchester was always good for at least one overnight stay for both of them.

Royle reached a set of temporary traffic lights on Perkin Lane as he approached his home of the moment. The other side of the road had been excavated to allow a collapsing Victorian sewer to be relined. There was nobody coming the other way, but a woman in a brand-new Sierra had stopped in front of him, forcing Royle to wait for the lights, which took a very long time to change. He fished out a cigarette, and while he was working the cigar lighter, he noticed something on the floor at the passenger side. The sight of shiny brown leather reminded him that he had heard the handbag hit something. Evidently, it had landed in his car.
An impatient sod honked his horn behind him. The lights had changed. Royle raised his left hand with two fingers extended, then he moved off. The other car tried to overtake him, but the driver got a nasty fright at the end of the road, when a bus turned onto their downstroke of the T-junction and swung out across the white line. Royle indicated left, the squeal of hastily-applied brakes making music in his ears, and turned onto Boxbey Road. At the end of a block of shops on the main road through Fenton, he turned right, and right again to the row of lock-up garages behind his street. He switched on the car's interior light to push back the gloom of the garage and the murky, clouded afternoon.
The handbag reeked of face powder from a compact which had burst open. Royle had a poke about inside out of idle curiosity. His car registration number had been written in large and shaky numbers and figures on a scrap of paper. The old bag had intended reporting him to the police, Royle realized. Not that they would have been able to do anything. He had been parked quite legally; which would have given the old woman another grievance.
It was a pity, but he had done some deserving copper out of a spot of severe GBH of the ear-'ole. The piece of paper became a twist of black ash when Royle applied his cigarette lighter to it.
There was a large envelope in the zippable compartment behind the handbag proper. It was made of thin cardboard rather than brown paper, and the flap tucked into a slot in the back. Royle opened it; and drew out six oblong plastic bags. 'BARCLAYS BANK LIMITED' was printed across the top of one of them, and below a self-adhesive label: '£500 in £10 notes (50 notes) £500'. With the calm of total surprise, Royle looked at the other bags.
They were all the same; all filled with brown notes which had a picture of Florence Nightingale on the back, all wearing a cashier's stamp and two signatures on the label, all with 'UNFIT FOR RE-ISSUE' deleted as applicable, and all printed with a message telling the bank staff that it was important to insert the notes face uppermost with the Queen's portrait on the right. Royle was holding three grand in his driving gloves.
He had read about old women getting their bags snatched and losing their life savings. But he had never expected to meet one stupid enough, or so mistrustful of banks, as to carry three thousand pounds around with her. The woman had looked around sixty; not even the age of his grandmother, who juggled her pension around a bank account, a National Girobank account, and a building society, so that she could have a bit of a natter with the counter clerks when she paid money in and drew it out. As her bank did not charge pensioners for its services, she paid most of her bills by cheque, and used a small calculator with a permanent memory to keep her records straight.
There was nothing special about Grandma Frost, but she had managed to take the developments of the Computer Age in her stride, and she had virtually abandoned cash transactions. And she made sure that everyone knew it. There was less chance of getting beaten up by some young tearaway, she believed, if they knew that she did not carry spending money.
Royle wondered briefly what was wrong with a woman who carried so much cash around with her. Then he turned his thoughts to the business of disposing of it. He removed a dozen notes from one of the bags to relieve his current financial embarrassment. The garage had a layered roof. Successive tenants had applied several coverings of roofing felt to seal leaks. If he stood on the door sill of his car and reached up, Royle found that he could just slip the plastic bags into a pocket of roofing felt where part of the original wooden roof had rotted away. A supermarket carrier-bag had blown into the garage. Royle dropped the handbag into it and wondered where to dump it.
Contractors were levelling some antique terraced houses a couple of streets away. Royle often took a short cut across the devastated land. And the job had come to a halt, he recalled. It was something to do with a bonus dispute. He locked his garage and set out in that direction, the carrier-bag tucked under his arm. Fairly deep holes existed in the rubble where cellars had not been filled in completely. Royle dropped the carrier-bag into one of them on the move. It disappeared from view satisfactorily. He turned left, towards the main road through Fenton. He fancied a nice, thick steak smothered in onions and mushrooms for his tea; now that he could afford to be extravagant.

3. Juggernaut Alley

A chilly and damp night had fallen. Simone Carver's pink Aston Martin was parked behind Olly Markham's cottage, beside the bright orange, souped-up Mini that belonged to her friend Carol Vickers, who had been recruited to keep T.J. company. Olly unwound an arm from Janice Wallace's silky-smooth shoulders and pushed up from the low, yielding sofa. It was the right time to give the party a little lift.
Olly poured out the last of the champagne and slid another bottle into the cooler. "We could do with some more ice," he remarked as he headed for the kitchen.
"Right," said T.J., releasing his bear-hug on Carol to follow his leader.
Olly opened the back door and looked out into the uninviting night. Misty drizzle filled the air. T.J. passed his charge an umbrella. Navigating by the light spilling through the net curtains on the kitchen window, Olly set a course across the tarmacked yard, heading for a particular tree beyond the two cars. A faint slither alerted him.
He started to turn as a figure uncoiled from behind the Mini, right arm raised. Olly jabbed the umbrella into the other's face, then booted him in the groin. The man collapsed, folded, groaning and retching. Olly silenced him with another kick to the face. A head clanged against the flank of the Mini, then thudded onto wet tarmac. The kitchen door opened. T.J. stood framed in the doorway, peering out into the night.
"You okay?" he called softly.
"Over here. Bring a torch," ordered Olly.
T.J. disappeared for a moment, then he trotted over to join Olly, following his own white oval of torchlight. The unconscious man was around twenty, a fairly average sort in damp denims and rubber-soled boots. A length of lead pipe was attached to his right wrist with a loop of nylon string.
"What's going on?" T.J. invited.
"This bastard tried to put a dent in my skull," Olly returned in an unconcerned drawl, fighting to keep his voice steady. He was trembling gently with mingled fear and anger. "No, shine the torch on his face again. Seen him before?"
"No one I know," said T.J. He swung the beam back to probe the trees along the estate's boundary wall.
"Remember that photo that came in the post a couple of days ago?" mused Olly, crouching to search the unconscious man's pockets. "Just a name, a description, and an address?"
"Could be him," admitted T.J. "Lawson, that was his name."
"That's what it says on his UB40X," said Olly, examining a folded piece of dog-eared official card. "So that's what one looks like."
"What do we do with him? Turn him over to the fuzz so the local magistrates can slap his wrist?"
"Let's hang onto him for the moment," decided Olly. "I think he deserves a sharper lesson. I don't know quite what, right this minute; something to teach him never to try and part my hair with a lead pipe. Tie him up and give him a gag. You can dump him in the garage for the moment."
"There's those handcuffs Ry had when he was trying to work out how Houdini escaped from them," suggested T.J.
"So they are going to come in useful!" marvelled Olly.
He resumed his broken journey, leaving T.J. to deal with the prisoner. Olly kept his supply of brightener in a hole which he had drilled into an ancient oak tree. His father tried to keep him on a fairly tight financial rein, but he was sufficiently generous to enable Olly to afford to take part of his cocaine-smuggling wages in kind, and at trade price.
By the light of the miniature torch on his key-ring, Olly inserted a T-shaped ornament into an apparently random split in the ragged bark and turned it through a right angle. When he pulled, a two-inch plug of wood emerged, followed by a length of linen thread to which were tied half a dozen small glass vials with polythene caps. Olly detached one of them, then allowed the others to slide back down the inch-wide tunnel.
"Here's the man with the nose-candy," laughed Simone when Olly rejoined the party. "We were afraid you'd got lost in the rain."
"Bloody nearly," chuckled Olly. "Are we going to be liberated and make it ladies last?"
"Like hell!" drawled Janice. "I've got your silver spoon, darling."
Olly rolled a small mound of white dust onto the toy-like spoon. T.J. slipped into the room with a supply of ice for the champagne cooler as Janice was inhaling vigorously. He gave the host a significant nod as he dropped ice into the silver bucket. Janice passed the spoon to Simone. T.J. stripped away foil and wire, and eased the cork out of the bottle. He preferred the blurring of alcohol to the lucidity of cocaine.
Ry plugged in the large television and connected the games console for a round of Space War. Watching T.J. sipping champagne, perched on the arm of an easy chair, Olly felt a brilliant idea explode into his cocaine-brightened mind.
Allowing Ry and the girls to take the first turns in the video battle, he caught T.J.'s eye and nodded to the kitchen door. They slipped out of the cottage and headed for the garage, Olly carrying a bottle and a polythene funnel. Their prisoner was awake, but unable to rise to greet them. The beam of a camping lantern showed that his hands were cuffed around the leg of the solid workbench, and a length of rope tied the handcuffs on his ankles to the socket of a sturdy bolt.
"Good-evening, Mr Lawson," Olly said pleasantly. "Want to tell us what your game is? Or do we break a few of your arms?"
"It come through the post," Lawson admitted when the gag had been removed. "A picture of you with your name and address. And a hundred quid in cash. The note said I'd get another two ton if."
"If you bonked me on the head with your piece of pipe," finished Olly. "So giving me a headache is worth three hundred pounds to someone. I wonder who?"
"There was just this photo, nothing else," volunteered the prisoner. "I burned the photo, like the note said."
"So you don't know who's behind this little lark," mused Olly, reviewing a mental list of enemies. "Pity. Oh, sorry! I'm forgetting my manners. You must have a drink."
Lawson was still struggling to digest the offer of hospitality when the funnel was rammed into his mouth and cooking brandy started to burn a path down his throat. T.J. pinched his nostrils to force him to gulp air through his mouth between swallows.
One-third of the bottle disappeared down the funnel over a period of several minutes to prevent a sudden rush of spirit shocking the victim's digestive system into vomiting it straight back. Olly offered his cigarette case to T.J. and sparked his gold lighter into life. He smoked half of his cigarette, then flicked it through the open garage door into a puddle. The drizzle had stopped.
"What now?" asked T.J., unlocking the handcuffs.
"He's going for a crawl," chuckled Olly, watching with interest as the prisoner tried to stand. "Along Juggernaut Alley."
"Not a very long one," laughed T.J. "We're not inviting Ry along too?"
"He's a bit rocky about the duel," Olly decided. "I don't think he'd go along with this."
"You're serious about the duel?" T.J. asked as he loaded the prisoner into the back of Olly's Jeep.
"We'll probably end up debagging him," said his master regretfully. "But if I see him again, we're going to have that cheeky sod. I'll drive. You've had more to drink than me."
Accepting the logic of the argument, T.J. climbed into the back of the Jeep to control the prisoner.

Juggernaut Alley was a narrow stretch of road, which heavy lorries off the motorway used as a short cut. Local residents were always complaining about the speed and size of the vehicles that used it, and forming human barriers on the thirty-yard straight stretch between two long bends. But, despite showers of petitions and more direct protests, nothing seemed likely to happen until the money became available to build a long-planned link road.
Olly coasted to a halt at the start of the first of the long curves. Looking back about three-quarters of a mile, he could see the descent ramp from the motorway, which dipped into a hollow at the roundabout, then climbed a gentle hill to approach juggernaut Alley.
Headlights and a large, dark shape started down the ramp. The driver changed down to tackle the hill.
Olly rolled round the bend to the straight section. T.J. unloaded the passenger. Olly moved down to the next curve. Lawson was making vague swimming movements on the wet tarmac. Olly could not decide whether Lawson knew what was happening to him. He seemed lost in an alcoholic fog.
The lorry rounded the bend at speed. Olly and T.J. heard a distinct double thump, the squeal of tortured rubber, and a crash of breaking glass as the lorry rammed something solid. Olly accelerated out of the second bend, circling back to his home.
"Sounds like friend Lawson won't be bonking anyone with a lead pipe in future," he remarked.
"Now someone's actually been killed, they might do something about the reckless driving along there," chuckled T.J. "Perhaps even start on the link road."
"That would please my old man," laughed Olly. "He'd get his slice of the action from the contractors."
"I suppose that's what they mean by every cloud having a silver lining," decided T.J. "Tell you what, you'd better burn that photo of Lawson."
"At the top of my list, old boy," drawled Olly, who was not a man to acknowledge that someone else had thought of something vital.

4. Pursuit

Waves of housing developments had converted a series of discrete villages into adjoining small towns. Royle drove four miles the following morning, passing through Bilcross and Snapely, and meeting the canal at Hythe. Joe Potheroe's junk-shop wore a gilt sign which proclaimed that it belonged to 'Jos Potheroe, Ltd.'. Potheroe had been flash enough to turn himself into a limited company. The single word 'ANTIQUES' in easily legible script and a telephone number adorned the front window. Royle had not met Potheroe's assistant in the flesh, but he had put an accurate mental picture to the telephone voice.
She was tall, skinny, thirtyish, and had a long, straight nose which was ideal for looking down. Her heels made her a good two inches taller than Royle. Her beak nailed him like the sight on the end of a rifle. There was a bad smell under the well-developed hooter, and Royle gave himself one guess as to the source. Someone had been warned to expect him.
"Joe about?" demanded Royle, coarsening his accent deliberately to play the offensive peasant.
"Mister Potheroe is out at the moment, sir," returned the blonde icily, stressing the title. "May I help you?"
"Yeah, why not?" agreed Royle. "You can give me the bread he owes me."
"I'm afraid that's something you'll have to take up with Mr. Potheroe," said the assistant stiffly, implying that she did not turn over the takings to any smart alec who strolled in off the street.
"Chance would be a fine thing," grinned Royle, looking her over in a detached sort of way. She was a bit flat-chested, but her legs were not too bad. Even so, he decided, she was one that he would kick out of bed. "Old Joe's about as easy to find as a white face down Andrews Street," he added, inspection over. "Tell you what, I'll wait."
Royle lowered himself onto a flimsy, bow-legged chair with calculated recklessness. The blonde fired a few more daggers past her nose, then retired to the office. Net curtains gave it a measure of privacy, but thanks to a window at the back of the shop, Royle could see the assistant's outline as she picked up the telephone and flipped her attention between prodding at the keys and keeping an eye on him to make sure that he did not walk out with something.
There was a strange, glossy, perfumy smell in the shop. Royle assumed that it belonged to some exotic furniture polish. You could not put a shine on valuable old wood with anything you could buy in the supermarket, he reasoned. Exclusive prices demanded an exclusive polish; which was probably not much different from the stuff in the supermarket, but packaged in a fancy tin at a fancy price.
Royle lit a cigarette. The blonde assistant was still using the telephone, trying to track down Joe Potheroe to warn him that one of the lower classes was lying in ambush. Royle tapped ash neatly into a vase which was decorated with unlikely flowers in repulsive shades of hard green and sickly purple.
The assistant contacted her boss eventually and returned to the body of the shop. She provided Royle with an ashtray and a disapproving sniff. He blew smoke at the stock and watched her prowling round the shelves and display cabinets with a bright yellow duster and a black and white-feathered tickling stick.
A gilt skeleton clock began to chime the quarter hour. Royle had been watching its works in action for about five minutes and had come to the conclusion that it was about the only thing worth having in the whole shop; even though he was reasonably sure that a couple of the gear wheels were plastic, not brass.
The clock did not have a price ticket; in fact, nothing in sight was priced; which saved inflating new labels to keep up with the state of the economy and allowed the quality of the customer's suit to be taken into consideration; or the authenticity of her fur coat.
The bell over the shop's door joined in discordantly with the clock's final pings. A man in an overcoat and bowler hat entered, carrying a brief-case and a neatly rolled umbrella. He held a brief conversation in hospital murmurs with the blonde assistant. Then they approached Royle; to look at the vase which he had been using as an ashtray.
The assistant painted a glowing picture of the craftsmanship and history of the vase, giving it an irresistible build-up. The customer nodded in all the right plates, eager to be convinced that he was showing good taste. Then the price was mentioned. Royle lifted both eyebrows, acquiring a new sort of respect for Joe Potheroe.
You had to admire the cheek of someone who could ask that sort of price for a piece of ghastly junk, he told himself.
The telephone in the office began to ring. "Excuse me, I'll be right back," the blonde said with a reassuring smile.
"Not jumping in ahead of you, am I?" the man mentioned to Royle in a plummy voice which contained a hint of apology.
"No; actually, I'm waiting for Potheroe," Royle returned with a distant smile, smoothing his accent to give himself a veneer of education and to place himself on a higher social plane than a mere shopkeeper like Joe Potheroe. "Rather a horror, isn't it?" he drawled, nodding to the vase.
"A fine example of the style," said the customer, repeating the sales propaganda. "A good investment."
"Until you try and sell it again," Royle said with a scornful smile. "And it's ugly. If you're looking for an investment, why not pick something you can stand to look at? I mean, what if a friend of yours told you he'd bought a really exquisite piece. But when he showed it to you, it turned out to be something like this horror?"
"It's a very fine piece," the snooty assistant interpolated indignantly, returning from the office to find sabotage being carried out under her generous nose.
"You'd say it's very nice, or something like that," continued Royle, ignoring the interruption. "But inside, you'd be thinking: 'Did he actually pay out good money for something as revolting as that?' I mean, don't those colours turn your stomach? Be honest."
"Well, they aren't the most attractive," admitted the customer.
"The only reason this is a 'valuable investment piece'," stated Royle, "is because some mug has been conned into wasting a small fortune on it and he doesn't want to take a loss. Helped by the people who make a profit out of his sort." He cast a significant glance at the assistant.
"I suppose it is rather brash," the customer admitted, allowing his true feelings to break through.
"Right!" approved Royle, cutting across the assistant's protests. "You're starting to see it for what it is, not the price tag. It's a fairly routine vase that's spoilt with bad decoration in appalling colours. It's ugly; there's no other word for it. The sort of thing a wally would buy if he didn't know any better."
"I take your point," nodded the customer, not quite sure what a wally was, but aware that it was a term of belittlement. "It's more the wife's line, china," he added, shedding further responsibility.
"That's the trouble with some women," decided Royle. "Flatter their intelligence and you're well on the way to palming off bad taste dressed up as art. Especially if they've seen so-called experts on TV telling them how valuable similar junk is."
"Take your point," nodded the customer. "I've really had my eye on that skeleton clock."
The blonde assistant assumed a superior smirk, knowing that the clock was more expensive than the vase.
"Some of those gear wheels are plastic," said Royle significantly. "I think it would be more at home in Woolworth's."
"Plastic?" repeated the customer, looking shocked. "Well, I'll think about it," he added non-committally to the assistant.
She watched him leave the shop, following him to the door with a dazed expression. Then she glared at Royle.
"I hope Joe's not going to be much longer," he remarked, innocently, lighting another cigarette.
The blonde rushed into the office to make more telephone calls. She returned wearing a haughty expression and carrying a wad of blue notes. "Mr. Potheroe won't be back before lunch-time," she announced. "But he's agreed to let you have fifty pounds on account."
"On account of he ain't gonna give me no more?" suggested Royle, returning to the role of uncouth peasant.
"On condition you stop haunting the shop," the assistant added firmly.
Royle flicked more ash into the green and purple vase and rose to his feet. He held out a hand and accepted the bribe. "Want a receipt?" he asked after counting up to ten.
"Yes," decided the assistant.
"I'll give it to Joe when I see him," smiled Royle. "See you, love."
Royle left the shop and climbed into his car, which was parked opposite the front door. He made a great show of driving away, but he took four right turns to circle the block and rejoin the main road through Hythe further back. The assistant, he assumed, would be on the telephone again to tell her boss that the coast was clear.
Sure enough, about five minutes after Royle had stubbed out his cigarette, a dark green van with gold lettering on its sides bowled past him, heading for the shop. Royle started his engine and moved out from the kerb. He tapped his horn a couple of times as the van signalled a left turn into the alley beside the shop.
Joe Potheroe experienced a violent jolt of panic when he checked his mirror as he slowed down. Royle was right behind him. Instinctively, he trod on the accelerator. Royle kept on his tail. Potheroe turned right at the lights, even though his left indicators were flashing. Royle followed him.
The chase deserved a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the slowest ever. There were no screaming tyres and scattering pedestrians. Potheroe was too afraid of the consequences to risk driving recklessly enough to stand any chance of losing his nemesis. And Royle was content to wait for the pursuit to reach a natural conclusion. They nosed up and down side-streets, but Potheroe never drove fast enough to leave Royle without the time and road space to make a turn, and he lacked sufficient cunning to give him the slip at a set of traffic lights.
They circled to Welling. Just past The Orb, Potheroe turned onto a road which led to the wooded and farmland area to the south of the town. In a no man's land between roadside houses, he began to slow down for no obvious reason. Royle applied his brakes, wondering what was to come next. He passed his quarry and parked in front of him.
When Royle approached the van, Potheroe was sitting behind the wheel with an expression of resignation. Royle tried the passenger door; and found it open. He slid onto the seat, leaving the door ajar in case Potheroe tried to run for it; but his quarry seemed to have admitted defeat.
"What do you know, Joe?" Royle asked casually, lighting a cigarette.
"Run out of bloody petrol," Potheroe said in a puzzled tone. He was in his middle forties, with a froth of thinning, almost transparent blond hair which made him look even balder. His usual confident energy seemed to have deserted him.
Royle reached over to remove the ignition key. "We've got some business to discuss," he remarked.
"I told you, the deal fell through," Potheroe returned apologetically, tugging at his ginger moustache.
Royle fired a smoke ring at the windscreen. He had been celebrating, and Potheroe had found him in a weak moment. For once, while making the Amsterdam run, a Customs officer had approached him as he was strolling through the green channel and had asked him to submit to a routine search of his baggage. Royle had shrugged and turned to accompany him, asking casually whether he had any choice.
That was his strong point; staying cool in a crisis. A trained observer would note that he was relaxed because he had no worries, not because he had been sucking a Valium tablet on the plane. Royle had never been one for worrying about difficulties before they arose.
Rooting through his duffel bag in a small office with discreetly frosted windows, the Customs officer had found some used socks and underwear in a plastic bag, which was helping to protect the corners of a hardback copy of Stand On Zanzibar. The bus ticket between 'context (14)' and 'the happening world (9)' received a routine inspection. A fancy tube protected a duty-free bottle of Glenfiddich. There was also a carton of duty-free Bensons with one packet removed. Royle had been wearing his plastic snakes of cocaine in a body belt.
The Customs officer had taken a good look at the book, as if expecting to find the middles of the pages cut out to make a hiding-place an inch and a half deep. Then he had admitted that he too was a bit of a science fiction freak; but the thought of tackling a five-hundred-page book was a little daunting. Royle had told him that he was on his second trip through the work, and had assured him that it was worth the journey.
They had chatted for a few minutes, swapping favourite authors and titles, and the Customs officer had cadged one of Royle's duty-free cigarettes to smoke in the privacy of their little room. He had not been in too much of a hurry to pick on his next victim because he and his colleagues had been working without enthusiasm in support of a pay claim.
Parting on good terms, Royle had taken the Tube to the centre of London, shed the body belt and collected his fee, and caught a train home. Potheroe had caught him well-lubricated in his local pub and had talked him into a deal which was supposed to double his investment inside a week. Royle had parted with two hundred and fifty pounds.
Potheroe had kept out of his way for a week. He had been evasive for a further week, putting Royle off with assurances that the deal was taking a little longer than anticipated. At the beginning of the third week, he had surrendered one hundred and fifty pounds under the threat of rearrangement of his lightly bearded face. More had been promised 'soon.'
Royle had mentioned that he expected three hundred and fifty pounds more. Potheroe had tried to argue, but Royle was having none of it. If his money had been returned immediately with an expression of regret, he would have shrugged off the failed deal. But Potheroe had lied to him and messed him about. And that was going to cost him. Royle had a stubborn streak a mile wide, and a deaf ear to turn towards sharp practitioners.
Royle blew another smoke ring into the silence of the van. Potheroe had had a further three days' grace to think up stories to explain his poverty.
"Didn't Jane give you another fifty quid?" he protested. "That's us nearly straight now."
"Not straight enough," decided Royle.
"It's a bad time of year for me."
"It's even worse for me. I've got this bloke who owes me money." Royle remained unmoved.
Potheroe sighed and produced money from his hip pocket. He managed forty-five pounds, and emptied his wallet to add a further five. "Happy now?" he said with a sigh.
"The way I see it, you've been using my investment as working capital," returned Royle. "Otherwise, you'd have been able to pay it all back in one chunk instead of three instalments. Which means I'm entitled to my share of the other deals. I'll settle for the two-fifty we agreed on in the first place."
"That's not fair!" protested Potheroe.
"And I suppose you screwing me around is?" suggested Royle. "Come on, get out."
"What for?" Potheroe asked fearfully.
"I'm going to lock the van," said Royle.
Half expecting to be beaten up, Potheroe climbed out of the van and watched Royle lock up. Having tested the rear doors, Royle dropped the keys into his side pocket.
"Right," he said, "two-fifty quid, Joe."
"What about the van?" complained Potheroe, holding out a hopeful hand for the keys.
"It's a hostage," Royle told him with an uncompromising smile.
"But I need it for work," protested Potheroe. "It's got valuable stuff in it."
"It's not much good to you out of petrol, is it?" Royle pointed out.
Leaving the antiques dealer gaping after him, Royle returned to his car and drove away. If he cut straight across country, on the B-class road under the canal and over the railway, he was about two miles from his home in Fenton.
He decided to have fish and chips for lunch. There was a short queue in the shop, waiting for the chips to brown. The man in front of him had bought a lunch-time edition of the Evening Standard. Reading over his shoulder, Royle noticed an item about an attack on a woman pensioner right outside her home. The mugger had knocked her down and taken her handbag, which, in the opinion of her neighbours, had not contained more than a couple of pounds as it had been stolen the day before she drew her pension.
The woman had landed face down in a puddle caused by a blocked drain. She had drowned while unconscious. There was no mention of three thousand missing pounds, just an appeal for witnesses who had been in the vicinity of Sodall Street, Welling, at the time in question. Royle wondered whether a reporter on the spot had copied down the street name from a distance, or a typographical error had turned Sidall into the version that appeared on the name board.
He still could not get over the old bag's lugging three grand around with her. It was so stupid; unless she had been working some sort of fiddle. Perhaps she had told the Social Security people that she had no savings. Perhaps she had been screwing more out of them in supplementary benefit than she would have earned in interest on her three grand. The notion made a lot of sense.
"Ready to turn the page?" demanded the owner of the paper, cutting across Royle's thoughts.
"Yeah, go ahead," he said casually. "There's not that much between the adverts, is there?"
The man grunted and stuffed his paper into a pocket as the queue began to move

5. Duel

After a wet weekend, the sun put in an appearance on Monday morning, Royle hid behind a pair of shades when he went out for his paper. He caught a glimpse of a dark green van from the newsagent, and possibly a flash of sun on gold lettering. Back at his first-floor flat, he made himself a bacon sandwich and a mug of tea, and settled down beside the telephone with his paper.
Olly Markham woke at ten, leapt in and out of a shower, and settled down to a more substantial breakfast of cereal, two soft-boiled eggs, toast and marmalade, and Ceylon tea. From his bedroom window, he had spotted T.J. working on the engine of the white Mercedes. His driver generally rose at eight, no matter how late the night before.
Olly glanced through his Telegraph while he was eating, reserving his mail for the second cup of tea. The postman had delivered a couple of bills and three pieces of junk mail; which offered hi-potency vitamin tablets, a subscription to a news magazine at an irresistible reduction, and expensive books with real leather bindings and gold edging on three sides of the pages. Olly reached past them for the parcel.
It was oblong; about six inches by three and a bit, and an inch thick. His address, correct to the postcode, was handwritten in the same square capitals that had been used on the envelope which had contained a photograph of the late Paul Lawson: and, Olly realized, his memory stimulated by the shape of the parcel, the package which he had received the weekend before.
Inside that wrapper of similar brown paper had been a box containing a stick of Brighton rock, which had been divided neatly into three equal pieces, and a puzzling and sinister note telling him that he could have received a bomb. He had given the rock to T.J. and dismissed the present as a pointless practical joke by a friend with a twisted sense of humour. Now, he was no longer sure that it had been sent by a friend. Olly opened the kitchen window.
"Hey, T.J., when did the parcel come?" he called.
"With the rest of the mail," replied his driver. "I know because I met the postman on my way back from the paper shop. I had a listen, but it doesn't seem to be ticking."
"If there's a bang and I'm spread all over the ceiling, you can keep the car," laughed Olly.
"Do I get that in writing?" T.J. approached the kitchen door, wiping his hands on a piece of rag.
"If you come much closer, you can pick your spot on the ceiling." Olly ripped away brown paper and split tape with a kitchen knife. "Well, bugger me!"
"I didn't know you were like that, " grinned T.J. "Bloody hell!"
Olly was holding a thick wad of pound notes. T.J. started to wash his hands mechanically, his attention focussed over his shoulder on the counting.
"There's two hundred quid here," said Olly. "And another photo. A bloke called Nails Mulligan."
"Another lead pipe merchant?"
"You never know. He's a bit older than the last one. Thirty-six. Looks fairly harmless."
"So does a letter-bomb. He must have a photo of you, Olly."
"You mean, if he gets up as early as you, he might be hanging around outside, waiting to bonk me on the head?"
"He'll probably wait till dark. What are you going to do about him?"
"Chances are he doesn't know I've got a photo of him; Which gives us the drop on him. I think I'll have to fight a duel with him. We'll take a turn round to his place to get the lie of the land. We can grab him later on. You'd better put the duelling stuff in the car while we think about it."
"That sounds like Ry," said T.J. as a car roared round to the back of the cottage. "We going to tell him about this?"
"No, let him think we're looking for that cheeky sod from The Orb. Here's a bonus for you." Olly divided the notes and gave T.J. the slightly smaller half. He thrust the rest and the photograph into the inside pocket of his jacket.
"Cheers!" approved T.J. He stuffed the bonus into the hip pocket of his cords and plugged in the kettle to make some more tea. Olly liked to finish his paper before venturing out into the world.

His telephone had not rung by eleven o'clock. Just for something to do, Royle got his car out and retraced the final episode of the pursuit of Joe Potheroe. The stretch of road between a phone-box and the sign that gave the headroom under the canal bridge was free of parked vans. Potheroe had evidently called for petrol and spare keys. He wanted to play games.
Royle decided to let the antiques dealer enjoy his triumph for the rest of the day. Then he would pounce.
Taking the longer way home through Bilcross, feeling wealthy enough not to be bothered by the price of petrol, he reached the temporary traffic lights at the sewer repair, which seemed to have come to a full stop. Inevitably, the lights were against him. A white Mercedes was approaching. Royle pulled up at the stop sign like an obedient motorist and rested his elbow on the window sill. The day was warm enough to allow him to drive around with his window open.
The Mercedes started to turn back to its own side of the road, having cleared the excavation. Then it snatched to a whiplash halt, blocking Royle's path. A man jumped out from the passenger side moments later. Royle expected him to check for damage, assuming that the driver had hit something. The next thing he knew, the man was pointing a large revolver at him and telling him to unlock his passenger door.
The muzzle of the gun looked enormous. Royle decided that it was a .45 calibre, the traditional weapon of the old West. It looked too real to be a replica, and he could see the blunt noses of the cartridges in the chamber. Obeying the order seemed a good idea. Another man got in beside him. The newcomer was holding a much neater automatic pistol; a weapon of convenient pocket size, but adequately lethal at close quarters.
"Drive down to the bottom, slowly, and turn right," ordered Ry Naylor as the Mercedes advanced, out of Royle's way.
"Why?" he asked coolly.
"Because I'll shoot you in the leg if you don't," smirked Ry, making a threat which he could not carry out. "About four shots will break your thigh-bone up a treat. You'll never walk on it again. It'll just be hanging off you. A useless lump of flesh."
"You've convinced me," decided Royle. "Who are you, anyway? And what's your game?
"You mean you don't know?" Ry sounded surprised.
"I wouldn't be asking else," Royle pointed out logically.
"You don't remember Olly? He will be offended. Right."
"Yeah, right." Royle flicked the indicator over for a turn towards the centre of Fenton. "Who's this Olly?"
"In The Orb. Last Wednesday. You insulted him."
"I don't go in anywhere called The Orb," countered Royle. "Hang on. Last Wednesday? He's not the idiot in the white suit? The one that likes to go walkies?"
"He won't like that," chuckled Ry. "He remembers you. The moment he spotted you back there."
"And you were looking for me with your peashooters?" Royle asked with a frown.
"Olly always gets his man."
"Like the Mounties? So where are we going?" Royle checked his mirror again. Predictably, the white Mercedes was right behind him.
"Somewhere quiet. Olly wants to fight a duel."
"You hold me down while he thumps me?" suggested Royle, thinking about a hard left turn and sliding across the seat to crush into his passenger. The man with the gun looked about twenty-two or -three. He had a cheeky face, black hair, and his fashionably slim frame was encased in a very smart suit with that season's precise width of lapel.
"That would be very unsporting," chuckled Ry. "No, he really wants to fight a duel."
"You've got some swords in your wagon too?" Royle asked incredulously.
"Pistols," corrected Ry. "Olly's into fast-draw at the moment. You'll both strap on shooting-irons, march ten paces, turn, and when you get the signal, draw and fire."
"You're kidding," mocked Royle
"You'll find out," Ry said confidently.
"Fight a duel with those forty-five cannons? Like a couple of Wild West gunslingers?"
"Right."
"And what if I blow him away? You and your other mate use me for target practice?"
"Hardly sporting," drawled Ry. "No, if Olly gets blown away, that's his hard luck. Nothing to do with us. Honour satisfied, and all that. Not that it's likely. Olly's a crack shot," he added, building up Olly's image so that the victim would be too afraid to draw and submit to debagging as a preferable alternative. "You shouldn't have insulted him; but that's your hard luck."
Royle took out his cigarette packet, then realized that he should have asked for permission. That was the rule on TV. But his passenger did not seem to mind, safe behind the deterrent of his gun. Royle lit a cigarette and digested the tale. He could not help but think that it was a practical joke of sorts. White Suit and his pals looked rich enough and spoilt enough to razz up the peasants with games with guns; but he could not see Olly fighting a genuine duel with real bullets.
Perhaps the passenger in the other car was loading the forty-fives with blanks, and Olly was planning to tape a blood capsule under his shirt. So that when Royle beat him to the draw, or managed a shot on target, there would be buckets of red, sticky liquid exploding through Olly's shirt; and the sucker would flee, convinced that he had killed someone.
Alternatively, Royle could slap on his brakes, bounce his escort's head off the windscreen, take the gun away, and throw him out of the car. His pals were unlikely to start shooting, even with blanks, with witnesses around.
As he had nothing else planned for the morning, Royle decided to go along with the game for a while. Eventually, as planned for Joe Potheroe, he would pounce. Perhaps he could arrange for his gun to go off accidentally, proving that it contained blanks. Or perhaps, when Olly's pals told him that the duellist was dead, he could boot him in the groin to find out if he was faking. The possibilities were endless.
Royle turned left out of Ashley, the next town on the Shepford road. The houses on either side of the road thinned and were left behind. Eight and a half miles beyond Ashley, the procession crossed the River Dane at Ottabridge and kept going. The road travelled through farmland and then began to climb into rocky, wind-swept pastures for hardy sheep. Apart from marching electricity pylons with their ponderous cables, and neat, dry-stone walls, there was very little evidence of human presence.
Royle lit another cigarette and glanced at his watch. He had been driving for twenty-five minutes. His passenger ground the stub of a long, slim cigar into the ashtray. He had gone through amusing contortions to light it one-handed while keeping the gun trained on his driver. Royle had reserved his laughter, saving it for later.
A horn sounded behind them. Royle looked at his mirror. The white Mercedes was signalling a right turn.
"Take the next right," ordered Ry.
Royle slowed, and turned onto a track; two strips of rocky earth with a Mohican sprout of limp grass between them. It curved round a low hill, turning back on itself to run parallel to the road. Royle found himself descending into a blind canyon which looked like an abandoned and overgrown quarry.
"All change," remarked his passenger.
Royle set the handbrake, switched off the ignition, and pocketed the key out of habit. One of the men from the other car was wearing a plum-coloured waistcoat and a holstered revolver. Royle took a good look at him, but the face failed to ring any bells.
"Remember me?" Olly Markham asked in a mocking tone.
Royle shrugged. "Not really." He tried, without success, to spot the bulge of a blood capsule as Olly shed his waistcoat to reveal a pale pink shirt.
T.J. tossed a holster to Royle. He buckled it on over his anorak and tied the trailing thongs around his right thigh, adjusting the height of the pearl handle of the revolver to a point midway between wrist and elbow. He had read somewhere that such was the proper position for a gun-slinger's weapon. Then he took the revolver out of its holster and looked at the chamber. The four holes that he could see were empty.
"These are double action," grinned Olly. "That means they fire when you pull the trigger. You don't have to cock the hammer first."
Royle squeezed his trigger a couple of times, aiming the gun at the rocky ground. Sure enough, the hammer rose and fell on empty chambers. Olly whistled at him. When Royle looked up, Olly's hand dropped to his side and rose again, holding a gun. The movement was smooth, efficient, and very fast.
"Ry's told you about the duel," Olly grinned at Royle. "But we're going to let you have a bit of practice. With an empty gun, of course, in case you shoot yourself in the foot."
Royle tried a few fast draws, not making too much of an effort to succeed. He managed to drop the gun once, and fired it before he cleared the holster a couple of times. Then Olly grew tired of laughing at his ineptitude and started to worry about damage to the weapon if Royle dropped it again.
"Load him up, T.J.," he ordered.
Olly's driver took the pistol from Royle and slid six fat cartridges into the chamber. They looked real enough; domes of lead projected beyond brassy cases; but Royle concluded that the 'bullets' were made of some material that would become dust when the blanks were fired. Keeping up the illusion, the one called Ry trained his small automatic on Royle to warn him that he would be dropped in his tracks if he tried any funny business; which seemed to rule out a premature draw and the firing of a blank to end the charade; if Ry had real bullets in his gun. Then inspiration struck.
"Are these real bullets?" Royle asked, tapping the butt of his gun. "They looked a bit phoney to me."
"When did you ever see a real bullet?" scoffed T.J., his accent revealing that he had been born to the east of the Pennines.
"This peasant thinks we're playing games!" whooped Olly. "He's too thick to realize he's in the presence of gentlemen. Watch. See that Coke tin over there?"
Olly turned half away from Royle and drew his revolver. Using a two-handed grip, he took careful aim. Ry and T.J. turned their heads to look at the target. In a moment of revelation, Royle realized that his chance meeting with Olly, and it could be nothing other than chance, precluded rigging up a Coke tin which jumped when a blank was fired. That required wiring to a small explosive charge, or a sound trigger of the sort used by special effects men in films.
If Olly managed to hit the Coke tin with a real bullet, then the duel was for real as well; and Johnny Royle was in a lot of trouble. As Olly settled into a stable aiming position, Royle slipped the gun from his holster and aimed it at his opponent's body.
The two explosions came more or less together. Royle did not see what happened to the Coke tin. He felt a painful jolt to his right wrist. Olly was thrown away from him. Royle shifted his aim and fired at T.J., who looked the more dangerous of the survivors. He too was spun off his feet. Ry had realized what was happening and was bringing his automatic to bear on the cad who had broken the rules. Indignation rather than fear was surging through him when the heavy bullet crashed into and out of his rib-cage.
Olly was still moving in an aimless sort of way. Royle pointed the gun at him and put another round through his shirt. The other two had sagged into final immobility. There was an acrid haze in the air; and smoke curling from the barrel of his revolver. Royle blew it away in unconscious compliance with the approved Western practice.
He checked the duellist and his seconds for a neck pulse, resting his other fingers on the collar-bone as a point of reference. Olly and his pals were stone-dead; which struck Royle as an inappropriate metaphor. The three bodies were still warm and floppy. As he had shot them at a range of around four yards, he was surprised neither that he had hit them nor that the bullets had passed clean through them. But that he had hit something vital with a generally aimed shot seemed extreme good fortune.
Royle stuffed the gun back into his holster and tried to massage away the pain in his right wrist. He had jarred it as badly once before; when he had swung a pickaxe handle at a head and hit an unyielding brick wall instead. He lit a cigarette, wondering what to do next. He felt a little shaken at having underestimated so badly the seriousness of Olly's intent.
Had not the duellist and his pals been so full of the game, and anticipating too much the kill to come, then he would have been the inconvenient body, posing problems of disposal. Perhaps, if they had played the game before, as seemed likely from their state of preparedness, their victim had been too petrified to deviate from their rules. But self-preservation in an unequal contest made its own rules. As Olly and his pals had learned to their cost.
Reaching a decision, Royle collected the guns and dragged the bodies over to the white Mercedes. He put Olly behind the wheel, T.J. in the front passenger seat, and sprawled Ry in the back. An examination of the boot revealed two one-gallon tins of petrol, and a cash-box full of ammunition under the tool-kit. He had found a polished wooden box for the .45 revolvers on the back seat of the car.
Royle stowed the guns and ammunition in his own car, then splashed petrol around in the interior of the Mercedes, having dimped his cigarette. He syphoned a couple of gallons out of the tank to soak further the bodies and the upholstery, and then another gallon for luck. Stepping out of range of the heavy, choking fumes, he lit a petrol-soaked rag and tossed it into the car.
There was a heavy thud, not a clean explosion, and tongues of flame rolled through the open windows to become dense black smoke. Royle hurried back to his own vehicle and returned to the road. He looked back, but failed to see a column of solid smoke rising behind the hill. He concluded that the wind was deflecting or dispersing the smoke.
He had been taken to a fairly isolated spot. If no one spotted the fire, and the next shower of rain washed away the blood on the grass, and if the bodies were burned badly enough, it was possible that a pathologist would not be able to tell that the trio had been shot before they died. But whatever happened, Royle was confident that there was nothing to connect him with three mysterious deaths miles from anywhere. It had been a strange morning. It had been a bit of a strange month. People had started picking on him all of a sudden; but none of them was getting away with it.

6. Betty

Driving homewards, alone and unthreatened, Royle had to struggle against the sense of unreality behind his feelings of euphoria. He was not in the habit of killing three men before lunch. As he started up the hill just outside Poulfield, he realized that he was feeling quite hungry. Four miles further on, with his dashboard clock approaching twelve-thirty, he started to signal a left turn. There was a pub called The Hound's Rest towards the bottom of the hill. His mouth felt as dry as Death Valley at noon.
Royle took his foot off the accelerator as the pub sign approached too rapidly. He realized that he had been doing close to seventy-five on the long, gentle slopes down from Poul Crest. Excessive speed could arouse suspicion later on; when the police found a burnt-out car with three bodies in it. He made a gentle turn into the car-park and stopped near the side-door of the pub.
He ordered a pint and turned his attention to the plastic cabinet of sandwiches. A toaster swallowed his order, sealed edges, and singed ribs onto the triangles of bread. The dozen people in the pub were a chatty bunch. One of the men at the bar tried to draw Royle into a conversation as he was paying for his lunch. Royle told him that he was not much of a betting man and did not really fancy anything for the one forty-five.
To escape questions about what sort of man he was, Royle took his pint and the plate of sandwiches out to one of the tables near the big oak tree. None of the others believed in open-air eating in October, but there was a warm breeze, and the sun was beaming down from a patch of blue sky which was big enough to make a waistcoat for a Yorkshireman, as his friend Lenny Suskin would have said.
Royle had noticed the figure on the stone wall while turning into the car-park. A pair of eyes began to burn into the left side of his face as he started on the sandwiches. Royle looked up. The girl looked about fifteen. She was quite solidly built and wearing jeans of faded and patched dark blue denim, a grubby white blouse, and a pale blue top. Her hair was mid-brown, and probably wavy when it was not lank, greasy, and in need of a wash. Royle assumed that she had drifted in off the motorway, which lay half a mile further on.
"You going to eat all them sarnies?" she demanded, having attracted Royle's attention satisfactorily.
"Wouldn't have bought them else," he returned laconically.
"You ever think about the starving millions?"
"About as often as they think about me."
"I wouldn't say no to a sarnie," said the girl, dropping a heavy hint along with her London-area origins.
"Plenty more on sale inside," returned Royle.
The girl just looked at him. Royle shrugged and took a long pull at his pint, drinking left-handed. His right wrist still felt mildly sprained.
"You wouldn't miss one of them, you mean sod," complained the girl.
"One's not much of a meal," Royle decided.
"I'll have two, then," The girl shrugged, telling him that she was prepared to do him that favour.
"You're a bit of a cheeky sod, you know that?" said Royle.
"You don't get nothing if you don't ask," The girl shrugged again. "How about it?"
Royle realized that he was feeling on top of the world. Getting the best of three armed men had bucked him up no end. He was in a mood to let the kid get away with her cheek. He fished a pound note out of a pocket and weighed it down with the superfluous ashtray. A light breeze was blowing across the car-park, stirring fallen leaves with its pleasantly warm breath.
The girl slid off the wall and approached the table cautiously, as if expecting Royle to snatch the note away. She had a bulging holdall slung over her left shoulder. "I fancy something to drink as well," she remarked.
"They won't serve you," Royle pointed out.
"I don't like beer," returned the girl, a triumphant note creeping into her voice as she scored a point off him under her private set of rules. "They do coffee and soup for lunch."
Royle shrugged and fished out another pound note.
The girl did not thank him. She just accepted her due and hurried into the pub, taking her holdall with her. She emerged carrying a tray, on which were sausages and mash, a bowl of tomato soup, a chunk of French bread, and a cup of coffee covered with a saucer. The food disappeared rapidly, as if the girl had not eaten for some time.
"Got a fag?" she asked, taking the saucer off her coffee.
"You old enough to smoke?" countered Royle.
"Been smoking since I was eleven," the girl assured him.
"That can't have been too long ago."
"I'm nineteen. Nearly."
"Not very nearly, I'll bet," Royle surrender the cigarette.
"Seventeen. And a half," the girl added with a shrug. "Are you giving me a lift?"
"A lift as well as a free lunch?" Royle objected.
"Go on, you rotten sod. It's not going to do you no harm."
"How do you know I'm going your way?"
"I'm not going nowhere special."
"Does your mother know you're conning people out of a lunch and bullying them into giving you lifts?"
"That old cow!" said the girl vehemently.
"That's not a nice thing to say about your mum."
"The old bitch," The girl tugged up the left side of her blouse to show an area of yellow and black a few inches above her waist. "She done that."
"So you're running away from home?" divined Royle.
"Wouldn't you?" countered the girl. "Me dad got drunk. Again. And he tried to feel me up. Again. So I give him a knee in the goolies. But me mum come in and said it was my fault for leading him on. And she started to knock me about. So I bloody hit her with a chair. It didn't break, you know. Not like they do on the telly. And while she was spark out, I packed up and scarpered with the rent money. She'd have bloody killed me if I hadn't."
"If you've got the rent money, you could have bought your own lunch," Royle pointed out.
"That's for emergencies, not spending," the girl countered. "No point in wasting it if you can get someone else to pay for you."
"Can't argue with that," Royle admitted.
"Well, has my hard-luck story touched your heart? Are you giving one of Society's victims a lift into town?"
"I'm only going as far as Fenton. But I suppose you can get a bus into Shepford. Got some pals there, or something?"
"Nah, but there's bound to be a squat or something. You see 'em on the telly all the time. And when you've got an address, you can screw some money out of the Social."
"Got it all worked out, haven't you?" laughed Royle.
"That's the way they do it on telly," The girl shrugged again. "Are you giving me a lift, or what?"
Royle shrugged in reply. "I suppose so."
"You can call me Betty, short for Elizabeth. Are you going to drink up so I can take the tray back?"
"What's the rush?"
"I wanna get fixed up with somewhere before it gets dark, or it starts raining again."
Royle finished his pint. The girl loaded the dishes onto the tray and took them over to the pub. She hurried back; to find Royle sitting at the table, finishing his cigarette. Her expression suggested that she was surprised to see him. Royle fished out his keys and led her to the car. Betty made herself comfortable and dumped her holdall on the floor, between her feet.
"Just in case you're thinking of trying anything on," she remarked conversationally, "I've got a knife."
"Yeah?" returned Royle. "What did you do, nick the bread knife with the rent money?"
"This ain't no bread knife," Betty unzipped the side pocket of her holdall and retrieved the weapon. It turned out to be a lock-knife with a three-inch blade. It looked like a cheap foreign job with a stainless steel blade which would go blunt as soon as it was used. But someone had filed away the step in the back of the blade so that it could be stabbed its full length into an enemy's body.
"It's all very well dragging that around," chuckled Royle. "But have you got the nerve to use it?"
"Try anything and you'll soon find out," warned Betty.
"Not till you've had a bath, love," Royle had noticed a thin, sour smell behind the masking cigarette smoke.
"It's amazing what you can do when you're pushed," added the girl, apparently unaware of the remark. "She's built like a bloody wrestler, me mum. She's always knocking us about, me dad and me. That's why our Jimmy buggered off to Bristol. We're like one of them problem families they put in plays on the telly. Except me dad's got a job. So's me mum. All that lifting builds her muscles up. She has to hold herself back when she hits us so's not to bloody kill us. But this time, she really hurt me. So I picked up this chair and bashed her one. She hit the floor like a ton of wet cement. And a cup bounced off the kitchen table. Didn't break, though. Funny that, isn't it?"
"They only break if you've got time to tell them not to," offered Royle.
"Yeah," The girl released the blade and snapped the knife shut. "Got another fag?" she asked, dropping the knife back into her holdall.
Royle offered his pocket.
"Okay if I take one for Ron?" Betty extracted two cigarettes and put one in an empty packet, which she kept in her jacket pocket. "Duty-free, these?"
"From a bloke who travels a lot," The cigarettes had disappeared on the way to a duty-free shop. Both Royle and his supplier knew their history, but there was no point in telling the world. "You're a cheeky sod. You know that?"
"It's the only way to get on these days," said Betty, unabashed. "This bloke on telly said everyone loves a lovable rogue. You gotta admire his cheek; they say that."
"'Just because they say it doesn't make it true. Watch a lot of telly, do you?"
"Not much else you can do when you're broke. Me mum takes all the money I get from the Social. I have to nick me dad's fags."
"No boy-friends?"
"Me mum scares them off. And they're only after one thing. Me mum says she'll kill me if I get knocked up."
"So where are you running away to eventually? Middle of London?"
"Joke!" scoffed Betty. "London's full of kids with no jobs and nowhere to go. And pimps waiting to make a bomb out of teenage kids. Till you get knocked up or worn out."
"Got all the answers, some people," commented Royle.
"Most of them," returned Betty modestly.
"I could drop you here," said Royle as they approached the centre of Ashley. "Save you a mile and a half's bus fare."
"You got your own place?" asked Betty. "Flat or something?"
"Flat," nodded Royle. "Why?"
"What you said about a bath. I could do with one."
"Hang about," laughed Royle. "You've done bloody well out of me already. I'm not bloody adopting you."
"Not for nothing."
"What, are you going to pay for the bath out of your rent money?"
"No, I'll do something for you. I'll cook your tea for you. I'm a bloody good cook, you know. Me lazy cow of a mum made me do it all. If I wasn't working, that was my job."
"I'm not a bad cook myself," remarked Royle modestly.
"Don't be such a mean sod."
"And what happens if the lovable rogue waltzes off with my telly, or something else that's not nailed down?"
"I wouldn't do that to a mate," protested Betty.
"Oh, I'm your mate now?" laughed Royle. "And a lovable rogue wouldn't admit she's going to bugger off with the TV. She'd just do it and expect you to be dead chuffed about it."
"Come on, don't be a mean sod. It's not going to hurt you if I have one lousy bath. You can search me after to make sure I haven't nicked the bloody soap."
Royle reached Fenton and stopped in front of his garage. What the hell, he thought as he applied the handbrake. If the kid did rip something off, he would still be well in the black. He had the best part of three thousand pounds stashed in the roof of his garage. And there was nothing much worth nicking in the flat. Living with the possibility of coming unstuck on one of his cocaine-smuggling trips, he had built himself a temporary nest from which he could fly without regrets if needs be.
"We're here, then?" Betty said brightly.
Royle nodded. "Right. All change."
The words had a familiar ring. They had been among Ry Naylor's last.
Royle put his car away, then led the way into the back yard, up the steps, and onto the roof of his air raid shelter patio. He unlocked the kitchen door and showed the visitor into the living-room of his first-floor flat.
"Bathroom," he said, pointing to the half-open door on the left.
"Towels?" said Betty practically, stepping into the small room. She noticed toothpaste splashes on the sink surround, a cobweb in one corner, and a frosted window in need of cleaning. "No thick black ring round the bath," she observed.
"Someone must have nicked it," said Royle, opening the cupboard over the hot water tank. "Towels."
"Right," Betty tested the temperature of the hot water. "I reckon I can manage now."
"Right," said Royle.
He left her to it, wondering what to do with the guns. The cowboy forty-fives were a bit of a liability. They were big, bulky, and flash with their pearl handles. And they kicked like a star striker. His right wrist still knew that he had fired four shots. Perhaps he could sell them to a gun-nut. With their fancy box, they had to be worth a few bob.
Royle retired to his garage. He managed to open the cylinders of the revolvers and removed the cartridges, spent and unfired. There was a cleaning kit in the polished box. He pushed the cleaning rod through the barrels and chambers, then applied a light, preservative film of oil. The guns looked almost like toys when he had returned them to their nose-to-tail recesses in the box. He wrapped the box and the cash-box of ammunition in a plastic bag and stashed them in the hole at the back of the garage. It was not much of a hiding-place, but he did not expect anyone to come looking.
He hid one of the automatics and one of the spare clips under the back seat of the car. Wiped clean of external fingerprints, nobody could prove that he knew about it. The car had been through at least four pairs of hands before he had bought it. He felt tempted to put the other automatic in his pocket. It was nice and neat, and it did not make too much of a bulge; certainly no more than the combination of wallet and cigarette packet: but he had to allow for Sod's Law.
If he was carrying a gun, some interfering idiot was bound to find out by accident and scream for the Law. And that meant a long time inside if they grabbed him. British judges get very shirty with people who wander around with concealed firearms; unless they are rich and spoilt like Olly and his pals. Their sort get away with everything; until they run into somebody like Royle.
The best place for gun number four was under the loose floorboard in his bedroom. Again, he could plead ignorance. Some pretty dodgy characters had rented the flat. And lots of others no one knew much about. As a fairly dodgy character himself, Royle felt slightly more secure now that he had his own private arsenal.
Having concealed the gun and the remaining two ammunition clips, Royle worked the dusty lino back into place. He had to wash his hands in the kitchen. Water noises and splashing issued from the bathroom. He strolled down to the off-licence to buy a couple of bottles of wine, taking the opportunity to dispose of the spent cartridges down a shattered drain on the demolition site.
Home again, he made himself a cup of coffee and took it into the living-room. He had his feet up and was deep in a collection of Agatha Christie novels when the visitor emerged from the bathroom wearing two towels; a large pink one around her body and a smaller striped turban on her head.
"I thought I'd do some washing," she remarked. "Anywhere I can hang it up?"
"Out back," said Royle. "The pegs are in the cabinet on the left of the kitchen door. Bottom drawer."
Betty found the washing-up bowl in the sink and used it to transport a mound of soggy fabric to the line, which ran to a pole at the edge of the air raid shelter patio. She made herself a cup of instant coffee, switched on the television, and flopped into a chair to dry her hair, her feet enjoying the warm gale from the fan heater. It was one of those days when it feels colder indoors than out.
"Got a fag?" she asked in the casual suggestion that was her closest approach to a request.
Royle pointed to the storage unit against the bedroom wall. "Top drawer."
Betty heaved herself to her feet. The drawer scraped open. "I'd better take a packet," she decided, wrestling with the wrapping on a carton of duty-frees which had never seen the inside of a duty-free shop. "It's gonna get up your nose if I keep asking you for ciggies."
"Bloody considerate of you," chuckled Royle.
Betty helped herself to his lighter, then returned to her chair and her coffee. "Read a lot, do you?"
"A fair bit."
"That's something I never got into," admitted the visitor. "About all me mum and dad ever read is the Radio Times and the TV Times. And I never found a book I can get into."
"There's millions about," Royle pointed out. "There's bound to be one you'd like."
"I never thought of that. But if I started reading a book, I'd get a clip round the ear off me mum. Get some bloody work done, you lazy little cow, she'd say. I s'pose I'd have a high visibility factor, like that Yank on the telly kept saying. You know, doing something different from them. Not gawping at the goggle-box. What do you want for your tea?"
"There's some chops in the fridge," Royle put his book aside for the moment. Betty was too much of a distraction.
"Chops?" she repeated incredulously. "Bloody hell! Bangers and baked beans. And bloody fish fingers. That's all me brother lives on. And if there's no one to cook for him, me old man goes down the chip shop or the takeaway."
"Hey!" realized Royle. "If you're making my tea, that means you've invited your bloody self too."
"Well, me things won't be dry much before tea-time," Betty pointed out. "Strange that, innit? This is the first decent day we've had for weeks. I suppose you could call it destiny. What else you got?"
"Spuds, of course. And some carrots ..."
"Carrots!" laughed Betty.
"I like carrots," said Royle defensively.
Betty blew smoke at the talking head on the television. She seemed to treat the box as a necessary background, like talking wallpaper. "None of my mob would know what a carrot looks like if I didn't dish 'em up now and again. Mushy peas from the bloody chippie. Drowned in vinegar. That's more their style."
"I can't stand mushy peas."
"Me neither. Got any tomatoes?"
"Tins in the cupboard. Couple of onions. And there's some mushrooms and half a green pepper in the fridge."
"Bloody hell! Me dad won't look at a mushroom," Betty's voice became a gruff snarl. "Bloody fungus, they are. Like what grows on your Auntie Jane's walls where the rain comes in," She beamed at Royle. "I'm gonna make a meal to remember. Like that bloke on telly's always saying. Got any stuffing?"
"Packets in the kitchen cabinet. And there's some wine."
"Can't stand the taste of that stuff," Betty pulled a face. "It makes me want to be sick. I think it must be psychological. There was a programme about it on the telly. Me dad gets randy when he's had a drink and he starts on me. And me mum always blames me for leading him on. Taking advantage of his condition. Christ! If I don't fancy him sober, why does she think he turns me on when he's stinking drunk? I think it's called aversion therapy. Putting people off things; like smoking. But it's booze with me. He puts me right off it."
"You ought to be on telly yourself," decided Royle. "You talk like one of those self-made professors."
"It's amazing what you can pick up if you've got nothing better to do than watch telly. But you can never be sure you've got it straight if there's no one to explain things to you. This programme isn't bad usually."
The visitor gave her attention to the television. Royle returned to The Mystery of the Blue Train. The day was becoming stranger by the hour.

Betty strolled to and from the kitchen, wearing her pink towel like a sarong, making preparations and putting dishes into the oven. She took her washing in at the end of the short afternoon, in the commercial break before the early evening news, and completed the drying job in front of the fan heater. She had made herself quite at home and she had started to leave her mark on the neighbours. Some old bag, she told Royle, had been staring at her, but she had rushed indoors when the vision in the pink towel had waved an energetic V-sign and made as if to throw something.
Royle just shrugged, unconcerned. Being polite to nosy neighbours figured very low on his list of priorities. No doubt there would be gossip and odd looks thrown his way the next time he showed his face, but Royle could live with them.
Betty retired to Royle's bedroom to dress. Wearing ice-blue jeans and a dark green jumper, and keeping half an eye on the television, she served pork chops in tomato sauce, baked potatoes, carrots, mushrooms, and dollops of sage and onion stuffing. As advertised, it was a meal to remember. She accepted Royle's appreciation with an I-told-you-so grin and collapsed in front of the television with coffee and a cigarette, telling him that she would do the washing-up later.
"Look at that!" she laughed.
"What's that?" Royle looked up from his book. It was strange, but he had noticed that a person watching television assumed that everyone else in the room was watching too.
"He didn't have much of a part," chuckled Betty. "Done in before the credit titles. Didn't even get a chance to say a bleedin' word. I wonder how much he got paid for that?"
"Union rate," decided Royle. "Probably enough to make what you screw out of the Social look like lunch money."
"Nice work if you can get it," commented Betty.
Royle drew the curtains on a black night and glanced at his visitor. Reading his mind, Betty patted the arm of her chair and announced: "This is like them chairs Michael Bentine was advertising on telly, isn't it? You can pull it out to make a single bed."
"No kidding," returned Royle.
"Come on, I won't be in the way if I kip down here on this," Betty told him.
"How do you know I want you kipping down here?" countered Royle.
"If you want to bring a bird back, just tell me to get lost. I'll go and kip in the car."
"That's bloody decent of you," laughed Royle.
The matter rested there. Royle was intrigued by the kid's nerve and the way she was manipulating him by taking advantage of his indifference. She was filling vacant areas around him, space for which he had no use: the passenger seat of his car, the bath while he was busy hiding guns and buying wine, and the other armchair.
She had cost him a lunch, a packet of cigarettes, and the food and fuel to cook her share of the dinner. But she had tackled the cooking and she had promised to do the washing-up. And the meal had been first-class. As long as she did not get underfoot, it really did not matter to him whether she stayed or moved on to her squat in Shepford.
Around half-past eleven, the guest made two cups of tea, then converted her chair into a bed. She had found the spare sheets and blankets. Royle drank his tea and decided not to pursue a fourth or fifth repeat of an episode of The New Avengers to its well-worn conclusion, even if it did feature the pair who were to go on to become Bodie and Doyle in The Professionals. Betty was made of sterner stuff.

7. Chained

Yawning, Royle padded across the living-room, wondering when he had opened the curtains. He was sure that he had drawn them the night before.
"Tea or coffee?" called a voice from the kitchen. "And what do you want for breakfast? You don't half look a sight in the morning."
Once through the sudden jolt of shock, Royle remembered that he was no longer alone. He ran fingers through tangled hair as a reflex. "Tea and some of that bacon," he decided, drawing conclusions from the air on his way to the bathroom.
Someone had been busy. His shaving mirror gleamed, and the white toothpaste splashes had failed to survive until his next sprint round with a damp cloth. Having breakfast made for him was a treat. The last time had been in Amsterdam, at Sibbi's place.
Royle took the short cut across the demolition site and bought a paper at the newsagent on the main road. Then he settled down beside the telephone with his breakfast. He was not expecting a call, but there was always the chance.
Betty was rattling around in the kitchen. She returned to the living-room, lit a cigarette, and dropped onto her chair bed with a sheet of paper and a ball-point. A few minutes later, she approached Royle and showed him a shopping list.
"Fifteen quid should cover it," she announced.
"I believe you," Royle returned the sheet of paper after a quick scan. "Oh! You want fifteen quid off me," he added into a growing silence. He surrendered two notes.
"If you're going out, I might need a key," hinted his guest.
"Yeah," Royle detached the spare key from his collection.
"You don't have to tell me if you'll be here for lunch," added Betty. "If you are, I'll make you some. If you're not, I won't bother."
"Okay, fair enough," Royle glanced at his watch.
Eleven o'clock had gone, and with it the possibility of a business telephone call. He had some pouncing to do. The lights at the sewer repair were red, as usual. Nothing was approaching. Royle splashed past on the wrong side of the road. For some perverse reason, half a dozen men were toiling away in light drizzle after a fine day off.
The car-park at The Orb was half-full, but better organization had left room for Royle. He ordered strong cider. The landlord whipped the top off a bottle, then he looked Royle up and down. "I see he didn't catch up with you," he remarked.
"Who's that?" Royle dropped a pound note onto the bar.
"Markham," The landlord turned to the till.
"I don't know any Markhams," Royle returned after a moment's thought, confident of his ignorance.
"You got right up his nose the other day; last time you was in," The landlord piled change into a neat tower.
"Oh! You mean the idiot in the white suit? Him with the big mouth? Thought I was staring at him? He soon went off the boil."
"He's wearing a wooden overcoat now. Him and his mates. Car blew up. Out Rotherbridge way,"
"Yeah?" said Royle, not particularly interested. "Seen Joe Potheroe at all?"
The landlord glanced up at the clock, then peeled back a cuff to double-check. "He should be in any minute. You buying or selling?"
"We've got this deal going," said Royle obliquely.
"I wouldn't mind a piece of his action," sighed the landlord. "Fancy being able to pick up something for a few quid knowing it's worth bloody hundreds."
"Yeah," said Royle with a sceptical smile, which the landlord misinterpreted as agreement.
"You don't know how close you come," the landlord added.
"To what?" Royle lit one of his duty-free Bensons.
"Markham. Vicious little sod, he were. Get on the wrong side of him and you'd had it. Him and his mates, Ry and T.J. You're bloody lucky they didn't catch up with you."
"Bit of dentistry with a brick?" Royle suggested sceptically.
"If you was lucky," the landlord said darkly. "His sort get away with it because they don't bloody care. And they've got money. Get on the wrong side of them and they keep after you, no matter what. Tomorrow, next year, or five years from now. They keep score, you see. He had his little red book. Get yourself in that and you'd had it," " Yeah?" said Royle.
"You was lucky, though. No one knew you. So you couldn't go in Chairman bloody Olly's little red book. But he asked."
"So how come you know me?"
"Good memory for faces. You don't see many blokes laugh at Markham. Not for long when they find out who he is. Was."
"You mean, you could have told the plastic surgeon how to put my face back together if he'd caught me?" laughed Royle.
"Something like that," Grinning, the landlord, helping himself to a glass of mild. "Shepherd out with his dog found them this morning."
"You said the car blew up?" Royle said with a frown. "Was this Markham into bombs?"
"You couldn't say what he was into," The landlord shrugged. "And there wasn't that much left of the car. There was a fire too, and they were more or less cremated. The police found Markham's ID bracelet. That's how they knew it was him. But they're double-checking just the same. There was just these loose bones rattling round in the car. Good bloody riddance; if he's gone."
"What, you mean it might be like you see on telly? Markham picks up a tramp, has a bit of a fire, gets the body IDed from his bracelet, and collects his own life insurance?"
"I wouldn't put it past him. Still, he can't come round here again, chucking his bloody weight around. Not if he's supposed to be dead."
"So you win both ways?" Royle concluded.
"There's plenty not sorry to see the back of him. And there's them as says he were a grand lad. But I suppose it takes all sorts."
The landlord moved away to serve another early customer. Royle became aware of someone lurking at his elbow. The man was of average height, fortyish, and powerfully built. His overall was streaked with black oil and lighter stains, which could have been cement or plaster. His left hand surrounded a pint mug and he was holding a pipe in his right hand. Royle decided that the man's forearm was twice the size of his own.
"I see someone beat us to it," remarked the stranger.
"Yeah?" Royle invited through a frown of puzzlement. "Beat you to what?"
"Markham. Sorted him out a treat," the man said through a broad grin. "Charlie Grafton," He wedged the pipe between his brown teeth and offered a meaty hand. "Good to meet someone who stood up to him."
Royle submitted to a minor crushing. "How do you mean? Sorted Markham out?"
"We've been waiting for him to make that one wrong move," continued Grafton, following a prepared line of thought. "Then we'd have had him."
"I don't get you," Royle said with a frown.
"Too many like him, these days. Vandals, muggers, doing old-age pensioners for a few easy quid. They did one the other day, just at the back of here. Proper miserable old cow. Remember that Monty Python film on telly? The Hell's Grannies? She was like that; always picking a fight. Still, it's the principle of the thing. It's too easy to get away with it. And if they do get caught, it's a slap on the wrist from the courts. Bloody social workers, saying it's not their fault. But some of them don't get away with it. This kid, he had a go at my mate's uncle. Seventy-eight, he is. Broke the pool old bloke's leg and nicked six quid and a lighter. Two years' probation, he got. I ask you,"
"A joke, isn't it?" agreed Royle.
"The kid's not laughing now," Grafton said confidentially. "Fell down some steps after he cashed his Giro at the post office. Broke his bloody ankle. And when the plaster come off, bugger me if he didn't do exactly the same all over again. That kid's watching his step now. And so are his mates."
"One way of doing it," grinned Royle. "You must have been in a long queue to sort out Olly and his mates. He must have had a pretty full little red book with his short fuse."
"You were number one on his hit list," hinted Grafton. "His sort can't let anyone laugh at them. He was all set to make a proper example of you when he found out who you was. I suppose that would make it self-defence."
"The bloke behind the bar said something about his car blowing up," Royle pointed out. "Sounds like an own goal."
"Yeah, maybe," grinned Grafton. "Funny how he went looking for you, and you're the one still coming in here. I just thought I'd let you know there's a few more around not going to let the yobs run riot. No matter who their dad is."
"Sounds like blowing himself up was the best thing he could have done," Royle drained his glass. "Well, must get on."
"See you," Grafton said with a nod, expressing a hope as well as a farewell. "All the best."
Royle doubted whether he would be seeing much of Charlie Grafton in the future. He had never been one for joining movements, and he did not fancy becoming involved with a bunch of vigilantes. He was too much of a lone wolf.
A dark green van with gold lettering on the sides was turning into the car-park as he reached the side door of the pub. It squealed to an abrupt halt, then clunked into reverse.
Here we go again, thought Royle.
The chase was on. By the time Royle had nosed his car out onto the main road, the van had disappeared. He turned left at the estate agent and building society office. He was rewarded with a glimpse of a green vehicle making a right turn further down the road.
Joe Potheroe just beat the traffic lights at the edge of Welling, amber-gambling and feeling quite pleased with himself, but the stretch of road down to the aqueduct was straight and offered no escape. A leaden weight crashed to the bottom of his stomach as Royle's car caught him up.
The second slow-motion chase lasted ten minutes. Realizing that he stood no chance of losing Royle, and wishing to cause himself a minimum of inconvenience, Potheroe slowed as he reached the outskirts of Hythe and made for the yard behind his shop. He stepped out of the van, locked it carefully, and handed the keys to Royle with an expression of resignation.
"Spare keys, eh?" remarked Royle. "So much for my hostage. Got any more?"
Potheroe shook his head, trying for an honest expression.
"Yeah?" Royle said sceptically as he returned the keys.
Potheroe's eyes bulged as his tormentor rattled a steel chain out of a cardboard box. Royle threaded it through the driver's door handle, wrapped it round the rear door handles, passed it through the passenger door handle, and applied a large padlock at the rear of the vehicle to secure the ends.
"I got stuff in there!" Potheroe protested.
"I got a hole in my wallet," returned Royle coolly. "Two-fifty quid deep."
With a sigh, Potheroe produced a wad of notes from his hip pocket. He counted off twenty fives and handed them to Royle.
"Another instalment."
"Right," Royle counted the notes and stuffed them into his inside pocket.
"'Ere, what about this bloody chain?" protested Potheroe. The smooth accent that he used on customers dried up when he was annoyed.
"You still owe me another one fifty," Royle pointed out, looking at the remaining paper in Potheroe's hand. "There's only about thirty quid here. And I need it," Royle plucked the notes out of his hand and counted. "Thirty-one. One nineteen you owe me. And if you bugger me about much more, I'm going to start charging interest."
"This isn't fair!" wailed Potheroe.
"We've been through all this before," returned Royle, unmoved. "You were fast enough grabbing my money in the first place. You've only got yourself to blame if it's got stuck to your fingers. I think I've been very patient."
Royle returned to his car, leaving Potheroe staring blankly at the shiny new chain with its business-like, inch-and-a-half links. He lit a cigarette before getting into the car. For some perverse reason, the lighter slipped through his fingers as he was putting it away. Something pinged off his windscreen as he bent down to retrieve the lighter. Another missile scraped a puff of brick dust from the wall of the antique dealer's yard.
Royle ducked into his car to deprive the sniper of a target. Kids with airguns sometimes got fed up of shooting at gulls and sparrows, or cats and dogs, and turned to human targets. Perhaps Charlie Grafton and his vigilantes had a point, Royle decided, as he set off for his flat and whatever his lodger had in store for lunch.

Betty was watching the television news and polishing the living-room furniture. There was a faint lingering of violently assaulted dust in the air. Someone had been very busy.
"Omelettes for lunch. I'll do your room on Thursday," announced the girl, squirting polish onto her cloth and applying it to the television. "Kitchen tomorrow."
"Anyone would think you like doing housework," Royle remarked as he lowered himself into an armchair.
"I don't mind doing it," Betty shrugged. "But in me own time. Not with me old bag of a mum moaning at me to do it."
Royle found the shopping list on the arm of his chair, and a supermarket receipt which showed a final total of £14.32½. He did not expect any change from the housekeeping.
"Borrowed the vacuum off the woman down below," continued Betty. "I told her you're my cousin."
"Yeah?" said Royle. A vague mental picture formed in his mind. The couple in the ground-floor flat were both dark and on the small side; an example of likes attracting. Royle hardly ever saw them, and he was not sure that he would recognize his neighbours on either side.
"And a bloke come to read the electric meter,"
"Any good news?" invited Royle.
"I saw a smashing anorak in the Army Surplus. Waterproof, quilted lining, only fifteen quid."
"Did you buy it?" "You couldn't lend me fifteen quid?"
"Lend?" laughed Royle, taking his eyes from the television screen to direct an incredulous stare at his guest. "You mean I'll get it back?"
"Yeah, if you're lucky," the girl said with a nod.
"I should be that lucky!" laughed Royle. He found the collection of pound notes which represented Joe Potheroe's final offering.
"I could do with a pair of shoes as well," suggested Betty. "Pay you back."
"Here," Royle tossed her the roll of green paper. He could afford to find out how big a mug she thought he was

8. Uncle Cliff

Two days later, at five past eleven on a grey morning, Royle answered the doorbell and was handed a package and a letter by a whistling postman. He was about to tear the letter open when he noticed that his name was not the one printed above the address visible in the window, and that the return address was the nearest unemployment office.
"Hoi!" he shouted at the top of the stairs.
The drone of a vacuum cleaner in his bedroom died to a gurgle.
"Do we know anyone called Ms E.R. Hollister?"
Betty rushed into the living-room, looking hot and dusty. "It's me Giro from the Social. Must be," She ripped open the envelope, demolishing it in the process, and studied the amount on the Giro before thrusting it into the hip pocket of her jeans.
"This is your address, is it?" remarked Royle.
"Yeah, I went to see them day before yesterday. Told them me mum beat me up and chucked me out. And showed them me bruise. Got them to send me money here. And a bit extra for rent and some clothes."
"And they believed you?"
"'Course! I got an honest face. And they could see me mum had knocked me about. That's why they're not going to tell the old bitch where I am if she asks."
"Amazing! "
Royle turned his attention to the package. It was addressed to him, and about the size of a thick paperback book: Dune or Catch 22. The wrapping was ordinary brown paper, the address hand-written in square capitals with blue ball-point, and the postmark was an illegible smudge. The vacuum cleaner started again in his bedroom. Royle stripped away brown paper and found a box of thick cardboard. Inside was a stick of rock, cut neatly into three equal pieces, and a card.
'BANG!' read the capitals on one side of the card. 'WHAT IF THIS HAD BEEN A BOMB?' was printed on the other side.
Royle frowned at the red-coated sticks. Very few people knew his address, and none of them had a sense of humour that could be described as weird. Perhaps the 'bomb' was a birthday present about a month early. If so, it was the first time for a long time that anyone had remembered the anniversary. He crumpled the card and the wrapping-paper and dropped them into the waste bin. He dumped the box on the storage unit for future reference.

After lunch, Betty switched from Pebble Mill to the second half of an episode of one of ITV's interminable serials. Minor details like a knowledge of the plot seemed unimportant. Her routine involved getting the shopping and cleaning out of the way in the morning so that she could collapse in front of the television in the afternoon.
She smoked Royle's duty-free Bensons at a rate of two per hour, and drank three cups of either tea or coffee between lunch and dinner. It was not much of a life, but it seemed to keep her happy.
"It's got Brighton all the way through this rock," Betty announced, having discovered the box in the commercial break before A Plus. "I like a bit of rock."
There was a thump, a crack, and a crunching of teeth. It occurred to Royle that the rock might have been poisoned if it was not part of a bomb. But the kid had consumed a good inch of it without ill effect and she was breaking one of the sticks into smaller pieces: unless the poison was either slow-acting or cumulative.
"Want some?" Betty offered the box to her host.
With a mental shrug, Royle selected the largest of the ragged fragments. Imagination was all right if you were writing rubbish to fill TV screens, but unreasonable fears could stifle a worrier into total inactivity. Royle told himself that he had been reading too much Agatha Christie; and the rock tasted all right.
Unexpectedly, the telephone rang. The arrangement was that business calls would be made between ten and eleven o'clock in the morning. Prepared for a wrong number, Royle lifted the receiver.
"This is your Uncle Cliff," a friendly voice with a vaguely northern accent said in response to Royle's number. "When are you coming to see your Auntie Joan and me?"
"How about this afternoon?" Royle suggested.
"This afternoon," repeated his despatcher. "Right! What's today? The fifth?"
"About half-two?" said Royle.
Both knew that it was October 18th. The date quoted was the number of a rendezvous point. Royle felt like a spy on such occasions.
"Right, we'll look forward to seeing you," returned 'Uncle Cliff.'
"We're getting low on fags," Betty mentioned as Royle shrugged into an anorak; the blue one without stripes on the sleeves; and transferred his wallet and keys.
"Fags," Royle repeated, realizing that they had been disappearing at a fair old rate.

Rendezvous point number five lay on the first-floor deck of the vast shopping complex in the centre of Shepford. The despatcher was in his middle forties, about the same age as Joe Potheroe, and old enough to be Royle's uncle. They retired to the warm clatter of the café for the briefing. Royle took charge of an envelope containing his passport and tickets.
"What's this, a rush job?" he remarked, stirring sugar into his coffee. "It can't be more than three weeks since the last trip."
"Business is booming," his despatcher said with a nod. His northern accent remained, but the friendly tone had become business-like. "Must be the party season. Or getting ahead for Christmas."
Royle glanced at his tickets. He was on the Amsterdam run. Out Friday lunch-time, back on Sunday morning. A couple of days with Sibbi on expenses, and then home wearing a body belt and enough cocaine for about thirty thousand tracks, which the well-heeled would use to burn holes in their nasal membranes.
"What do you want, eight and cash?" asked the despatcher.
"Make it the ten," decided Royle. "I'm all right for cash at the moment. And I want them over there, okay?"
"Okay," The despatcher nodded, which surprised Royle. He had been expecting resistance.
The fee for a delivery job was ten Kruger Rands, which Royle usually took in coins and cash. Runs at about six-week intervals provided him with a decent income and a golden pension in his Amsterdam bank deposit box to cushion the blow should the Customs and Excise Department catch up with him. His employer, whom he had never met, believed in frequent small shipments to reduce the impact of interception or piracy.
"Someone got himself nicked?" Royle suggested.
"Got himself dead," replied the despatcher. "His car blew up at the beginning of the week."
Royle put on a frown. "Not locally?"
"Why do you ask?" said his despatcher.
"A bloke's car blew up out Rotherbridge way. Name of Markham."
"You knew him?" The despatcher returned Royle's frown and a look of surprise.
Royle shrugged. "No, I only met him the once. I happened to be in this pub, looking for someone. He reckoned I looked at him the wrong way and he was going to sort me out. But his car blew up before he got round to it."
"That sounds just like him," the despatcher said with a nod. "It wasn't you helped him on his way?"
"Funny you should say that," laughed Royle. "A bloke in the pub asked me the same question; almost. Head of the local vigilantes. Sounds like Markham had enough enemies to keep a whole bomb factory happy without me. "
"He was a bit trigger-happy, but he did his job well. So! There's no problems about the trip?"
Royle shrugged. "I didn't have anything else planned."
"You pick up the rest of your spending money at the shop off the Dam Square. The hotel's been told to expect someone else, not Markham; but you'll be using the same recognition code. It's all in there."
Royle glanced at the envelope. "Burn before reading?"
"Aye, you know the drill," the despatcher said with a smile. "It just sort of throws you off when you have to change everything at the last minute. You been having a lucky streak recently?"
"You can't lose them all, mate, law of averages," Royle offered as an explanation of the change in his usual payment arrangements. He had a reputation as a gambler; one who plunged to his limit, but with cash in hand, never credit.
"Well, good luck. And keep your head down; but not too far down."
"Inconspicuous, but not furtive," remarked Royle.
"Right! And I'll probably see you again about the usual time. Unless there's another rush job,"
The despatcher finished his coffee and left. Royle knew neither his name nor anything about him. Curiosity was not encouraged in his profession. Similarly, the receiver, who took charge of the body belt in England, was another unremarkable face of about the same vintage.
Royle never saw the person who delivered the belt to his hotel room in Holland. It just appeared in his duffel bag. In the event of discovery, he could offer only two descriptions and a few addresses in Holland in an attempt to lighten his sentence. It was understood that he could divulge this minimum. To part with more information, should more be acquired by accident, would be fatal. The rich rewards of cocaine-dealing could buy influence in many places, including Her Majesty's prisons.
The despatcher, whose name was Stephen Birch, took the escalator to the ground floor and crossed the main road to the row of telephone boxes beside the main post office. He dialled a London number, let it ring five times, then depressed the receiver rest and dialled again three minutes later.
"Everything went off all right," he reported.
"Not that we expected any different," returned Colin Mulgraham, the employer whom he had never seen. Mulgraham preferred to conduct certain types of business by telephone or post.
"An odd thing; he met Markham shortly before his accident."
"It's not too much of a coincidence, two couriers meeting if they live fairly close to each other. Race Hill's only about four miles from Fenton."
"Hmm, yeah," admitted Birch. "I suppose not. He might even have met some of the others without knowing who they are."
"An exploding car's a good way of fixing someone in your memory," added Mulgraham.
"He mentioned the local vigilantes think he might have done it. He rubbed Markham up the wrong way."
"It's a good story," chuckled the mystery voice. Its owner knew that Nails Mulligan had taken care of Olly Markham; which was unfortunate, because Markham had handled Paul Lawson very efficiently. "But I suppose he's the sort that knows how to take care of themselves. Back to the normal routine now."
"Right," said the despatcher.
The organizer of the cocaine-smuggling network replaced his receiver and assumed a thoughtful frown. It was a pity that Olly Markham had not lived up to expectations. But the man who called himself just Royle seemed the right sort of material too. Mulgraham found himself hoping that Royle would pass his preliminary examination.

Back in his car, on the top deck of the car-park, Royle committed to memory the short phrase which Olly Markham had used as a recognition code. He touched his lighter to the cigarette paper. It flared, leaving a ghost of grey ash in the ashtray. He could not get over the dead duellist's having been another mule; but, he realized, couriers could come in all shapes and sizes.
A man who risked his liberty to earn up to twenty-five thousand pounds a year, tax-free, could be expected to make a splash between trips. Olly Markham had splashed by throwing his weight around and fighting duels. Royle preferred to concentrate his hell-raising into holiday periods of about a month. He preferred contrasts in his life. He lacked the stamina to be obnoxious all the year round.

Betty had moved the portable television into the kitchen. She was peeling potatoes when Royle returned to the flat, and watching a space cartoon adventure. Royle dumped a carton of duty-free Bensons on the storage unit and plugged in the kettle to make a mug of coffee.
"Going away on business tomorrow," he announced. "Back for lunch on Sunday."
"Oh!" said Betty, looking surprised. "So you really have got a job?"
"We don't all screw money out of the Social," grinned Royle. "We're not all that bright."
"They don't give you that much. I hope you like chicken, 'cause that's what we're having for dinner."
"Fine by me. I got some more cigs, by the way."
"There's this disco on Friday night," Betty said, an apologetic note creeping into her voice.
"What, you weren't expecting me to take you?" laughed Royle, spooning instant coffee and sugar into a mug.
"Nah! You don't mind me going?"
"I don't get this," admitted Royle. "I thought you were free to come and go as you choose? Now you've adopted me. Or do you want to borrow the price of a ticket?"
"Nah, it's free for girls."
"What, then? Do you want me to tell you you can't go so you can go anyway and prove how independent you are?"
"I don't know. It just sort of seems wrong not asking someone. Perhaps it's that psychology stuff. I always have to ask me dad if I can go anywhere, 'cause me mum won't never give me any money. 'Cept what I can fiddle off the shopping."
"I've never been a father-figure before," Royle remarked as he poured hot water into his mug.
"You don't get pissed often enough to be a figure of my father," said Betty. "Oh, if anyone from the Social asks, I'm giving you fifteen quid a week rent. Okay?"
"On that sort of money, I can afford to give up my job," laughed Royle. "Does that include your grub?"
"No, I don't reckon it could. But as I'm your housekeeper, that's part of my wages. And I reckon you owe me about a tenner besides."
"That should just about cover your fags," decided Royle.
"Oh, yeah! Works out nicely, don't it?" grinned Betty.

9. Crash

Leaving the kid with her feet up in front of the television, armed with a packet of duty-free Bensons and a pound of green grapes, Royle strolled out for a pint or two at the nearest of Fenton's six pubs. There was a subdued atmosphere in the vault of The Green Man, the only pub that served draught cider. The police had looked in on the card players a week earlier. They had ignored the crib crowd, who had been playing for fifty pence a corner and always kept their money in their pockets. The crash players, whose thirty-pound kitty had been in plain view, had not been as lucky.
The four actually holding cards had been hauled into court and fined, and they were feeling very sorry for themselves. They could not say the word 'magistrate' without adding a string of swear words. A notice on the wall in the crash players' corner stated that gambling was illegal, but games of skill played for modest stakes were permitted. The crash crowd had argued, unsuccessfully, that thirty pounds was a very modest sum in the Inflationary Eighties.
Royle played half a dozen games of pool and put away three pints of cider. He won four and lost two at a fiver a game. The money changed hands in a comically furtive fashion, even though the vault was copper-free. Only the fined crash players failed to see the joke.
The night was dry, and large rents in the overcast put a nip in the air. Royle zipped himself up in his anorak and raised the hood as he left the warmth of the pub. Hands thrust deep into his pockets, he started across the Worth Road demolition site short cut, wondering what there was for supper. With his guest doing all the cooking, he had started to lose touch with the contents of his fridge.
Something loomed out of the darkness; a figure was there suddenly when no one had approached him. A swishing noise cut the air. Royle raised an arm to brush back his hood to improve visibility. Something with sharp edges glanced off his forearm. Royle ducked and delivered a combined kick and push with his right foot.
His attacker crashed back into part of a brick wall and bounced into a partly-filled cellar. His bicycle chain clattered as it skittered across the debris.
In an everlasting moment, Royle watched a slab of brickwork totter and topple. His attacker started to scream; he drew in a hoarse, sobbing breath to let out a yell; then the segment of wall landed. The impact described itself precisely to Royle. It sounded exactly like about forty pounds of bricks and mortar crunching and squashing human bone and flesh after falling about four feet.
Royle became aware of an ache in his left forearm. He touched his arm gingerly. The demolition site was as treacherous as the Great Grimpen Mire in The Hound of the Baskervilles in the dim yellow glow from the unbroken street lights. Royle decided not to stray from the familiar safe path to determine the fate of his attacker. Ankles were sprained at the rate of roughly one per week by daylight crossers. The mugger would not be attacking anyone else in a hurry with a great lump of wall on his chest.
"That you?" called Betty, her attention fixed on the television, when Royle entered the flat through the back door and the kitchen.
"No, it's burglars," he replied.
He shed his anorak in the bedroom. The left leg of his jeans was dark with thin mud. He had stepped into a puddle without noticing and splashed himself half-way to the knee. His left forearm ached, and there were the beginnings of a long bruise, but the skin was unbroken. He was sure that he had felt stickiness trickling inside his sleeve, but he had to admit that his imagination had been working overtime.
He changed his jeans and left the damp pair hanging up to dry. The fridge offered cold sausages for a sandwich, which he made while a teabag brewed. A crumby plate and a mug in the sink told him that his guest had supped already. The kid liked her grub. The slimming industry would never make a crust out of her, Royle decided.
Channel Four was showing one of its ancient films. Along with most of the population over the age of twenty-five, Royle had a vague idea of the plot, but he had never actually seen the drama. For once, he stayed with Betty until the death; and discovered that she switched off at the end of the final programme and before the closing dose of commercials.

There was a bruise a couple of inches long and an inch wide on Royle's arm in the morning, but the ache had gone. The discoloured area was sensitive to touch, but it did not trouble him if he left it alone.
After breakfast and the morning paper, he packed his usual travelling gear into his duffel bag and added his twelve-shilling, 1970 edition of Dune. He had not read the second-hand copy of the 500-page paperback for five years, and the plot was due for refreshment. Betty was compiling a shopping list when he set out for the bus stop. British Rail's ancestors had seen fit to bypass Fenton.
Betty screwed a tenner out of Royle on his way to the front door, and a half-promise to bring her something from wherever he was going. He had not volunteered his destination, and she had not asked. His first set of tickets would take him to Manchester.

10. Orwell

The telephone in the CID office at Shepford's main police station began to ring. Detective Sergeant Brian Orwell ignored it, allowing a subordinate to deal with the infernal instrument.
Detective Constable Mitchell answered with a bored hello. Then a note of interest crept into his voice. Orwell cast a surreptitious glance at him and noted with a sinking heart, the grin on the young DC's square face. Something, about which he wanted to know nothing, had happened on their patch.
A faint ting told him that DC Mitchell had replaced the receiver. Orwell kept his head down over the papers on his desk, but turned his eyes to the right. If anything, the grin had broadened. A naturally long, thin face drooped further.
"If it's another stiff, I'm putting my papers in," growled DS Orwell, tugging at a fresh growth of dark brown moustache. He was trying a change of image.
"Well, they reckon you're on the backside of the hill at thirty-five," grinned Mitchell, who was ten years younger than the sergeant.
"I don't believe it," groaned Orwell.
On Wednesday night of the previous week, he had been called out to view the remains of one Paul Lawson; about whom much was suspected in the way of petty crime but nothing had been proved. His alcohol stream containing just enough blood to make it red, Lawson had taken a stroll along Juggernaut Alley; and had been duly squashed by a juggernaut full of tasteless French apples.
Nobody had admitted seeing Lawson between about tea-time and the time of the accident. The source of the brandy and the reason for his celebration five miles from home remained mysteries.
Tuesday's trip into the country, after a stormy Monday night, had been less stomach-turning. The fire had reduced Oliver Markham's car to bright and blackened bare metal. Gale force winds, heavy rain, and the dawn activities of some scavenging animal had battered the three skeletons to heaps of loose bones.
Attempts to find out what Markham and his friends had been up to in the abandoned quarry had come to nothing. His father, Councillor Markham and someone not to be ignored, had been torn between grief, a desire to find his son's killer, if Oliver had been murdered, and a reluctance to allow scandal to touch the family's name. The response from Ryan Naylor's parents had been much the same.
The forensic team had remarked on the intensity of the fire and the man from the fire brigade had suggested that a fourth party could have saturated the vehicle with petrol before it caught fire. The pathologist had played three-dimensional jigsaw puzzles with ribs and suggested that one of the three men could have been shot with a large-calibre weapon. But the evidence of foul play remained very tenuous.
"All right, what is it?" Orwell demanded at last.
"Bobby Henshall, layabout and cheeky sod, found on the demolition site between Beech Street and Sumner Road in Fenton. In a hole with half a brick wall on him. Couple of kids found him."
"This is a bloody conspiracy," complained Orwell. "Whatever shift I'm on, people keep finding bloody dead bodies."
"Are we going for a look?" asked DC Mitchell.
"Have we got any choice?" groaned Orwell.

In due course, canvas screens were erected around the body, photographs were taken, and the immediate area searched. A crowd of two dozen assembled at the edge of the expanse of rubble to discuss the police activity and to cast inquisitive glances at the ambulance parked in Beech Street. One of the prowling uniformed men found a bicycle chain, which suggested that the dead man had been in a fight. The lump of brickwork was heaved up to ground level and transfered to a van as possible evidence.
When the body had been removed, zipped into a black plastic sausage on a stretcher, the crowd began to lose interest. Detective Sergeant Orwell set in motion the usual inquiries about Henshall's movements. In due course, his superiors would scan the autopsy evidence and tell him whether the death had been accidental, murder, or of indeterminate cause.
Accident was preferable because it involved the least paperwork.

11. Amsterdam

The sun kept breaking through the clouds at Manchester. Heavy rain was falling around Amsterdam. Royle watched it battering the windows of the airport bus as he travelled ten kilometres from Schiphol to the centre of the city. Perhaps it was just a series of unfortunate coincidences, but Amsterdam was one of the wettest places on Earth in his experience.
He caught a couple of trams instead of walking a further kilometre to the small hotel behind the Prinsengracht. A taxi would have meant a drier, quicker, and more convenient journey, but the tram was much more anonymous. Cyclists were out in force, splashing through the slackening drizzle. Rain and bikes were the two words that summed up Amsterdam for Royie.
An envelope containing ten one-ounce Kruger Rands was waiting in his hotel room. Royle added the golden coins from the last run. He had been carrying them loose in the ticket pocket of his cords. When the rain stopped, he took a tram to his bank and stored the coins in his safe deposit box. After picking up his Dutch spending money, he ran out of things to do.
He had arranged to meet Sibbi at her flat at six-thirty in order to give her a little time to unwind after work. Royle went back to his hotel and took his book down to the bar. A quiet read and a couple of beers were as good a way as any of passing a wet Friday afternoon in Amsterdam.
When he left for the evening, barring accidents, he would not be seeing much of either the book or the hotel until Sunday morning.

12. Nails

Roy Mulligan recognized the lettering on the package. Part of the wrapping had been cut away clumsily with the kitchen scissors. His twelve-year-old son collected stamps indiscriminately, laying in huge quantities of swaps to exchange when inflation had left them far behind.
Mulligan opened the package in the shed at the bottom of his long, narrow garden. The rest of the family had been trained not to disturb him when he was potting in his shed. They just buzzed him on the intercom when meals were ready or a major crisis blew up.
The box inside the brown paper wrapping contained two thousand pounds in tens, and a photograph. On the back of the Polaroid picture was just one name: Royle. Its owner was five feet eleven inches tall, weighed 175 pounds, had jet-black, shortish hair, and was twenty-six years old. The eyes were directed to the side and the head slightly cocked, as though Royle had been looking to the left and listening for traffic coming from the right when photographed.
Mulligan committed the address to a retentive memory and made a note to look it up in his street guide of the area. He knew that Fenton lay somewhere on the other side of Shepford, but not exactly where.
Using his pruning knife, he chopped the head out of the photograph and slipped it into the stamp compartment of his wallet. He burned the perimeter. Then he took fifty pounds from the box, wrapped the box in a polythene bag, and stored it in one of the compartments beneath the floor of his hut.
His unknown client, Mulligan realized, had credited him with the elimination of Oliver Markham. But, as his wife was making noises about their two kids needing winter shoes, Muiligan was prepared to take advantage of a convenient accident.
He would tell his wife that he had been offered a couple of foreigners and slip her the money. She would assume that he had been using the firm's van for private deliveries; a slightly more acceptably illegal sideline than arson and explosive assassinations.

13. Payment

Royle shed his body belt in the toilets at Victoria Station at around midday on Sunday. He slipped cocaine worth around forty-five thousand pounds, wrapped in a spare carrier-bag, to his receiver in the buffet. Then, armed with a plastic cup of British Rail coffee, he found himself a seat on the train home.
Betty was watching University Challenge when he reached the flat. Cooking smells told Royle that she had been busy in the kitchen during the commercial breaks. The table had been set for two, but with one wineglass, and a boat of mint sauce told him that they were having lamb. Royle unloaded his bottle of duty-free whisky and a carton of cigarettes onto the storage unit in the living-room.
"What d'you get me?" Betty asked confidently.
Royle handed her a box of chocolates. He had been unable to think of anything more original.
"Hey, these are great!" his lodger approved. "Dinner in about ten minutes if you want to have a wash and things. Oh, that come for you."
Royle brought his attention back to the storage unit; and noticed another package. It was about the same size as the one in which the rock had been delivered. He wondered briefly whether there was a genuine bomb this time.
"When did it come?" he asked casually, raising his voice to compete with applause from the television audience.
"Saturday morning," replied Betty.
Royle stripped away brown paper, then looked at the postmark. His package had been through the sorting centre at Shepford; but so did every letter and small parcel posted within six or seven miles of the town. If the sender had dropped it into the box at the end of Royle's street, it would still have made the round trip of eight and a half miles to and from Shepford to travel twenty-five yards to his door.
Alert for wires, Royle split securing tape with a thumbnail and lifted the lid of the cardboard box. Inside, he found a large number of used one-pound notes, and beneath them, a photograph. Listed on the colour Polaroid snap were a name, a brief physical description, and an address.
Roy 'Nails' Mulligan was five feet seven inches tall, weighed 135 pounds, had mid-brown hair, was thirty-six years old, and often wore glasses. He lived at 27 Laurel Road in Ullwood; a growing town/village about five miles to the north-east of Shepford.
There was nothing else either in the box or clinging to the brown paper wrapping. Royle wondered whether there could be a bunch of spies lurking down the street, waiting for a piece of wrongly delivered mail. But his name and address were written quite clearly in the distinctive squarish letters and figures. And there was no return address and therefore no way of letting the sender know that he had forgotten to include a covering note.
Royle did not know whether he was supposed to deliver some or all of the money to Nails Mulligan; or why; or where. Had he watched the scene played out on television, he would have assumed that his character was a hit-man. But the box contained pound notes amounting to no more than two or three hundred pounds; hardly a sufficient deposit for a fifth-division assassin. A proper professional worked for thousands; lots of them.
Royle knew that because he knew a professional hit-man called Lenny Suskin.
He returned the money and the photograph to the box, and replaced the lid before retiring to the bathroom to wash off the grime accumulated during his journey home from Holland.
He wondered for a while why someone had sent him Mulligan's picture and some money. Nails looked a fairly inoffensive sort. But so did Dr Crippen in photographs, and Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin had been able to summon up a fairly paternal smile when not ordering the deaths of millions.
The nickname was intriguing. Compulsive nail-biting was all that came to mind. Roast lamb, roast potatoes, and two veg pushed the matter from Royle's mind for the moment.

After the meal, Royle took the box into his bedroom and counted the contents while Betty was watching the afternoon film on BBC 1. He had been sent £200 in unremarkable used notes. Their condition varied from crisp but creased to dirty and limp. Some had Sellotape bandages repairing splits.
Royel put his windfall back into the box and dumped it in the chest of drawers until he received the missing instructions. He felt tempted to throw away the box and pocket the cash, but he had almost an embarrassment of paper currency suddenly. The best part of three grand was sandwiched in his garage roof. Most of the money that he had been able to screw out of Joe Potheroe, antiques dealer and sharp practitioner, padded his wallet. And he still had a few guilders left over from the Amsterdam trip.
He made a mental note to steer clear of the Paradise Club in Shepford. A brief winning streak and then fruitless attempts to get back straight had accounted for most of the cash from the previous Dutch job. Only the expectation of £500 from Joe Potheroe when his deal went through had tempted him to empty his pockets to throw good money after bad in the hope of changing his luck.
Royle lit a cigarette and drew back his shirt sleeve. The bruise still looked quite bad. He had told Sibbi, his Dutch girl-friend, that he had acquired it at his contact karate class. And she had believed him; which proved how gullible women could be.
Was it possible, he mused, flying off at a tangent, that Joe Potheroe had set the idiot with the bicycle chain on him? As a protest against Royle's method of collecting debts? Did Potheroe know any junior hit-men? Royle felt tempted to dismiss the notion. But Potheroe was due another call. He still owed Royle one hundred and nineteen pounds.
Perhaps it would be instructive to take a good look at good old Joe's expression, Royle told himself, when he saw his Nemesis strolling about apparently undamaged and undeterred.

14. Kidnapped

His doorbell rang on Monday morning while he was reading the paper beside the telephone. Expecting either the postman with more mysterious boxes, or Betty with a tale about forgetting her key, Royle went down to the front door. He found a stranger with a brief-case eyeing the bellpush and wondering whether to press it again. She was about thirty, casually dressed in well-worn corduroy, and she had a weary, patient expression. She looked like an idealist who had found the future just as unpalatable as the past.
"I'm looking for Betty Hollister," she announced.
"She's out," returned Royle. "Shopping."
A shopping expedition was an essential part of the kid's daily routine. Royle rarely went shopping specifically. He usually picked things up on the move as inspiration struck.
"I'm from the DHSS," the woman explained.
"Can you prove that?" invited Royle.
The woman fished about in her handbag, which had been hidden by the brief-case, and produced an identity card in a blue plastic wallet. Her name was Helen Melville.
"Of course, I wouldn't know whether this is real or from Woolworth's," remarked Royle. "Your great-great-grandfather didn't write Moby Dick, by any chance?"
"Nobody's asked me that since I was at university," said Ms Melville, looking surprised.
"Studying sociology, no doubt," murmured Royle. "I suppose you'd better come up and wait. The kid should be back in a few minutes."
The visitor followed Royle up the stairs and lowered herself onto one of the easy chairs. There was a stool beside it, offering the Radio Times, the TV Times, and a collection of newspapers folded to the television programme page. Her eyes flicked round the livingroom, taking in an instant impression.
A few rolls of wallpaper and a couple of tins of paint would have done wonders for it, not to mention new covers for the chairs. But it was neat and clean. Wood shone and glass sparkled, and the fruit bowl overflowed with oranges and apples. The occupants of the flat had standards and believed in keeping them flying.
"There's just the one bedroom in these flats?" remarked Ms Melville, sorting through papers from her brief-case.
"Right," nodded Royle. Then the significance of the question penetrated. "Was that a roundabout way of asking if I'm knocking the kid off?" he grinned.
"Well ..." Royle's frankness seemed to have put the visitor at a loss for words. She was saved by footsteps on the stairs and a key turning in the lock.
Betty dumped a carrier-bag on the dining-table and gave Royle a 'Who's your friend?' look.
"Someone from the Social to see you," grinned Royle. "Checking up on your moral welfare."
"Eh?" Betty put on a frown.
"She wants to know whereabouts you sleep."
"Oh!" grinned Betty. "I'll be with you in a minute. I just have to put a couple of things in the fridge."
"Are you one of our clients, Mr., ah?" asked Ms Melville, a trifle waspishly, questioning Royle's right to be lounging around at home on a Monday morning.
"Royle," he replied, wondering whether his name would be filed as 'Royal' in her memory. "Not me. I'm on call." He glanced at his watch, which was showing 11:02. "Or I was till two minutes ago. I'll leave you to it."
Royle retired to the bedroom to collect an anorak, not wishing to be tripped up by ignorance of whatever stories the kid had been spinning. He left the flat through the kitchen and the back door, collected his car, and drove four miles.
Leaving his car behind a supermarket, he crossed the main road through Hythe and approached the rear of Joe Potheroe's shop. The dark green van was parked outside the yard. There was no sign of its owner. Using the set of keys which he had acquired over a week earlier, Royle let himself into the van and started the engine.
There was no one running after him, waving and shouting, when he turned towards the main road; which did not say much for Potheroe's security precautions. Royle drove half a mile and parked at the far end of the station car-park.
He walked back to the shop and approached from the rear again. Discarded behind the gate, he found a padlocked chain, which had been severed clumsily with a hacksaw. Potheroe had skidded about quite a bit before getting his cut started. The man himself exploded through the back door of the premises as Royle was clanking his chain, like Marley's ghost.
"Hello, Joe, what do you know?" Royle said casually. He dropped the chain and looked out into the alley, towards the spot once occupied by a dark green van.
Potheroe stared blankly for a moment and then registered his loss. "My bloody van!" he gasped.
"I'm getting fed up with being screwed around, Joe," announced Royle. "I want what you owe me, plus another twenty for the chain. Then I'll tell you where your van is."
"I haven't got that much," protested Potheroe.
"Interest at fifty per cent daily will be charged from tomorrow," continued Royle. "My patience is not limitless."
"That's daylight robbery!" yelped Potheroe.
"What would you call not paying a bloke back when a deal falls through?" inquired Royle.
Potheroe tried to wriggle. Royle refused to budge, despite veiled threats of police action. He just mentioned that someone might steal the van while it was standing idle. Burning with stifled rage. Potheroe counted up his cash in hand, then sent his snooty blonde assistant down the road to the bank to bounce a cheque for more.
Royle reclaimed his car and headed for home with a feeling of achievement. He had made a good start to the week and rid himself of a source of irritation. Joe Potheroe had not been surprised to see him alive; he had been more worried about Royle's next evil idea. Royle could not believe that Potheroe had set the kid with the bicycle chain on him. After all, the kid was dead and his picture had appeared in the Evening Standard. Joe Potheroe would not have come dashing out of his office to meet a killer. He would have run for his life in the opposite direction.
As people tend to write on walls: Joe Potheroe was innocent, OK!

15. Outrage

Royle kept some books to read again in the distant future. When he had built up a pile of a dozen or so inferior products of the imagination, he took them to the large bookshop in Shepford and traded them in, two for one, at the second-hand section.
Betty invited herself along for the ride into town. She seemed quite happy with the outcome of her interview with the woman from the DHSS and she wanted to take a look at the shops. She even offered to drive. Royle was surprised to learn that she knew how. A boy-friend had taught her, she explained, in return for entertainment on the back seat, but she had never got round to applying for a provisional licence. Her mother had frightened the boy-friend away before she had started to think about taking her test. And Royle had no L-plates anyway.
They left the car on an expanse of tarmac which a cash-and-carry had provided for its customers, and arranged to meet again in an hour. Royle acquired a new supply of reading material and looked in a lot of windows. The kid was waiting for him, sitting on the wall, when he got back to the car-park. Having deposited a Marks & Spencer carrier-bag in the boot with his books, Betty drew Royle's attention to a convenient pub with a communicating car-park. Royle realized that the time was around one-fifteen.
A small crowd had aimed itself at the television. Betty ordered a pie, crisps, and coffee, then settled down to absorb a reduced ration of Pebble Mill. As one forty-five approached and a singer was performing on a windy Birmingham lawn, she picked up the car keys, which Royle had dumped casually on the table.
"Want me to bring the car round?" she offered.
"You insured?" countered Royle.
"I'm not going to hit anything," scoffed Betty.
Royle reserved judgement and followed her out of the pub. He stopped at the short stretch of roadway between the two car-parks. Betty made her way confidently along a line of cars. She had no trouble with the door. The engine started first time. She found first gear and started to move forward smoothly. Then a blast of sound and air lunged at Royle.
His car had rammed the back of a van. Royle dashed towards it, crunching on hail-stones of glass. His car had a swollen appearance. Every window had gone, and the roof bulged. The kid didn't have a face any more; just gleaming white bone set in a halo of raw, oozing meat.
Someone else reached the car; and turned away, retching. There could be no doubt that Betty Hollister's life had been snuffed out in one violent instant. Royle became aware of a reek of liquor behind the suffocating stench of spent explosive, and small blue flames, ignited by a hot exhaust. He was standing in a puddle of whisky which had leaked from the van, and his shoes were on fire.
He retreated quickly. Someone shouted a warning about a second bomb. People ran in a strange stillness which included footsteps and the sounds of the city, but no human voices. The car caught fire. It seemed to be the season for Viking funerals. Flames rushed downhill to start the first screams. Royle's shoes had gone out. Sirens began to approach from the fire station in the centre of the town. A car blew up, providing the expected second explosion.
Royle remembered the gun and the spare clip under the back seat of his vehicle. If the fire set the ammunition off, there would be even more fun and games. He noticed a man struggling to remove a camera from its case, all thumbs, but hoping to take a picture which the newspapers would buy. Royle turned his back and walked away. One of his rules for a quiet life was no publicity.
It was a pity about the kid, he thought, as he slipped away. But she had not had much of a life, and her future had looked fairly empty. Perhaps she was better off out of it.
The bomb had been meant for him. There could be no doubt about that. But Betty's cheek and his own indulgent amusement had sealed her fate.
Royle turned two corners in quick succession, adopting the hesitant, backward-glancing progress of those who had heard the explosions but were too embarrassed to rush to the scene of the commotion like uninhibited peasants in case the cause turned out to be trivial.
He ran through a list of priorities in his mind. Someone was trying to kill him, but he had a certain amount of time in hand. An autopsy would be required to determine the age and sex of the body in the car. Betty had been in a terrible state after the explosion. A fire would make matters infinitely worse if concern about further bombs delayed the fire brigade.
He had to disappear until he could determine the identity of the assassin. Money and a means of self-defence were needed; which meant the three grand in the roof of his garage and the gun under his bedroom floorboards. The weapon in the back of his car would set the police thinking, especially if they managed to trace it back to the late Olly Markham. But the registered owner of the bombed vehicle was a mythical being who lived at an address which had been wiped off the map by a crane with a huge, iron wrecking-ball. Royle had made the occasional trip to Holland in the car, and one of the rules of the game was never travel under your own name. His own alternative identity had been useful, but it would have to go.
Tidying up mechanically, Royle took out his false driving-licence and tore it into small pieces. He sprinkled them into three litter-bins and a lidless dustbin on his way to the bus stop. If the police could find any fingerprints on the car, good luck to them, he decided. Royle's were not on file anywhere; to the best of his knowledge. He usually wore his driving gloves in the car, and the fire would not leave much behind.
The books: the assistant in the shop had counted a dozen in and half a dozen out without taking too much notice of either the customer or his selections. The police would not get much change out of the charred remains. He and Betty had attracted very little attention in the pub. It was more likely that the police would assume that she had been looking round the cash-and-carry. The car was in their car-park.
As for himself: he was known to have a car. He would have to acquire a similar vehicle in his own name before people noticed its absence.
Royle joined the queue at the bus stop telling himself that he could not be connected with the bombed car. He was in the clear; apart from the small matter of someone trying to kill him.

He had almost reached his front door before he started to wonder about surveillance and whether it would be wiser to approach his flat from the rear. A youngster on the bus had been listening to the story of the bombing from the local commercial radio station. The IRA was getting the blame, and officers from New Scotland Yard's Anti-Terrorist Squad were on their way to investigate.
Royle wished them the best of luck as he decided that a bomb was essentially a coward's weapon. The killer had planted it and scuttled away to a safe distance. He had not used a radio trigger because he would have seen Betty get into the car, not Royle. And he was nearly at his front door anyway.
"Oh, Mr Royle, this come for you." His downstairs neighbour caught him half-way up the stairs. "It come through our letter-box. We was meaning to give it to you; but you know how it is. I hope it's not urgent."
"You put it somewhere handy and it becomes invisible," commented Royle, accepting the envelope from a hand with slim fingers and chipped, red, nail varnish. "Cheers."
He carried the letter into his bedroom and dropped it on the floor while he retrieved the automatic pistol and the spare ammunition clips from his 'safe' under the floorboards. He felt irrationally more secure with the additional slight weight in his anorak pocket; even though a gun was not much protection against a bomb.
It would be a good idea, he decided, to take his gun to somewhere out of the way and fire it a few times to get the feel of the weapon. He had used a gun only once before, seeing off Olly Markham and his seconds, and shooting a .32 automatic had to be completely different from handling a .45 cannon.
There was no stamp on the envelope, just the distinctive capitals which had brought him a stick of Brighton rock and then £200 and a photograph of Nails Mulligan. Royle ripped the envelope open, and pieces started to fall into place. There was a photograph inside, with familiar details on the back. The face matched the one in the Evening Standard of the young man who had been crushed by a lump of wall on the demolition site two streets away.
The envelope lacked a stamp because it had been delivered by hand; to the letter-box on the right of the front door instead of the left; perhaps on the previous Thursday night. Someone had arranged the confrontation between young thug and potential victim; and he had had the good manners to provide the victim with information on the thug as well as vice versa.
Despite the serious nature of his predicament, Royle managed a small smile. The game master had a certain style. Even if the photograph had been delivered on time, Royle doubted whether it would have affected his encounter with Robert Henshall. But he would have known what to do about Nails Mulligan. Incorrect delivery and his neighbour's absent-mindedness had cost Betty her life.
The flat, Royle decided, was as safe a place as any to wait out the daylight hours. He took another look at the photograph of the bomber and fixed the address in his memory. Nails no longer looked so harmless. Royle's A to Z of the area had gone up in smoke with his car, but there was an older one with loose pages in one of the drawers of the storage unit.
Having fixed the position of Laurel Road in Ullwood, Royle consulted his newspaper. There was nothing much on television. He switched on the radio for news flashes, poured himself a large measure of duty-free whisky, and settled down to continue Dune. It was a pity about the half-dozen books that he had lost with his car. He had no new reading material.

16. Nailed

Rumblings of hunger sent Royle into the kitchen in search of food. He was cooking for himself again. The kid had been parked on him for just a week, but it seemed much longer. When he had loaded a meal into the oven to warm up, he took a tour of the flat, looking for traces of Betty Hollister. There was an extra toothbrush in the bathroom, and an orange face-cloth. The clothes in her holdall were equally anonymous. Royle found neither name-tags on the garments nor documents in the bag. Betty's possessions could have belonged to anyone.
Fed and feeling dangerous, Royle slipped out into a dark night. The regional television news had featured the IRA outrage in the centre of Shepford. Nothing was known about the driver of the bombed car. Hints had been dropped about an IRA bomber scoring an own goal. The victim had been called 'he' throughout. Nails Mulligan, Royle decided, would be feeling smug and safe.
He passed a skip on his way to the main road. The new owners of a shop were having it refitted. Royle lobbed the kid's holdall into the skip in passing. The owners of the shop had resigned themselves to receiving contributions from neighbours and passers by. Betty's holdall would be buried by morning.
The bus covered four miles in ten minutes, picking up and setting down a handful of passengers. Royle had lost his own wheels, but he had found the keys of Joe Potheroe's van in his anorak. He chinned himself on the gate of the yard behind the shop. The van was there. Royle climbed the gate and drew the bolts. He backed into the alley and pulled the gate to. Ullwood lay eight miles to the north-east.

Royle found Laurel Road without difficulty and drove past the Mulligan residence. There was a light burning in the hall, and another at the back. He made two left turns. The house behind Mulligan's was in darkness. Royle backed into the drive. High, straggling hedges separated the house from its neighbours. Royle slipped round to the garden at the back. He had no particular plan in mind; but if the worst came to the worst, he could always stroll into the Mulligan residence with a scarf over his face and remove the man of the house at gunpoint.
The shed at the bottom of Mulligan's garden spilled yellowish light through a grimy window. Royle picked at the woven boundary fence to make himself a spyhole. Nails was pottering about in his shed. He had an electric percolator in bits on his workbench. Royle ducked through a gap in the hedge to the neighbouring garden and climbed a three-foot fence into Mulligan's garden.
Torch in his right hand, gun in the left, Royle pushed straight into the shed. Mulligan was turning towards the intruder when the heavy-duty torch caught him behind the left ear. His glasses fell off as he sagged to the floor. Royle roped the bomber's left wrist to his right ankle and his right wrist to his left ankle. After applying a gag, he searched the unconscious man. The presence of his own face in the wallet was proof enough that he had coshed the right man.
Reasoning that Mulligan would keep the tools of his trade in his retreat, Royle looked over the hut. The workbench had drawers, and the walls were lined with shelves and cupboards. But they were too public. Royle had noticed an upstairs light go on and off during his approach. Mulligan did not live alone. The other occupants of the house would come poking about in the shed when they wanted tools, screws, and other bits and pieces.
Under the wooden floor, which was made up of lino-covered squares, he found a set of polythene lunch boxes. Royle stripped off sealing PVC tape. Nails had stored five half-pound sticks of gelignite, a box of detonators, coils of fuse, and a familiar size of cardboard box stuffed with ten-pound notes.
Royle cut off a length of fuse and touched his lighter to it. It burned slowly but steadily. He wrapped three detonators in a handkerchief and buttoned them into one of Mulligan's pockets. He put a coil of fuse into another. Royle took personal charge of the money and found a carrier-bag for three sticks of gelignite. He was just checking that he had everything when a loud buzzing noise delivered a heart-stopping jolt to his nervous system.
The buzzing cut into the night again. Royle's eyes searched urgently; and stopped when they found the red light on the intercom unit on the workbench. He depressed the black bar below the speaker grill and responded with an abstracted "Mmm?"
"Your programme's on in ten minutes, Dad," said a young voice.
"Mm hm," Royle replied, trying to convey wordless gratitude.
Mulligan was still limp and unco-operative. Royle picked him up by his belt and heaved him out into the night. Half of the ten minutes had gone by the time he regained Joe Potheroe's van. He loaded Mulligan into the back and put the gelignite into the dashboard. Reason told him that the explosive was safe and stable if handled gently. Imagination wondered what the police would make of another IRA own goal in the van of an allegedly respectable dealer in antiques.

Roy Mulligan woke feeling cold, sick, and cramped. Someone was shining a torch into his eyes and slapping his face. Something was digging an unyielding sharp edge into his back. Royle had tied him to a concrete fence post. Satisfied that the prisoner was awake, Royle shone the torch on his own face.
"Recognize me?" the hunter asked with a grim smile.
The prisoner was still gagged, but the horror in his eyes was sufficient answer.
"You owe me one motor," Royle continued in a conversational tone. "What did you do to it?"
Mulligan had a good cough when the gag was removed. "An electronic counter," he admitted when Royle raised a hand to a slapping position. "The first time you used the car triggered it. The clock ran down whenever the engine was running."
"Very clever. Only Betty Hollister, age seventeen and a half, was driving when it ran out," Royle told him. "Bad research. So I thought I'd broaden your education by letting you find out what it feels like to get blown up."
Royle flicked his lighter into life and touched it to a length of fuse, holding it in front of the prisoner's eyes so that he could see what was happening. The fuse started to fizz. Royle released it and walked away, checking his footing with the torch. He knew from that great educator his television set that one walks away from an explosive charge. A person who runs could trip and break an ankle, and fail to crawl out of range.
He had also watched a blaster at work once, blowing out tree roots, and had learned how to crimp a detonator onto a length of fuse. He had used a Phillips screwdriver from Potheroe's tool-kit to prod a hole in one of the sticks of gelignite to take the detonator. All three sticks were taped together, and bound to Nails Mulligan's chest.
Royle reached an outcrop of rock and took shelter. The length of the fuse had been a guess. Mulligan was thrashing around frantically, making grunting noises and trying to release himself. Suddenly, he went limp. Royle shone his torch on him. The man had fainted. The assassin had been unable to face his own death. It did not seem right that he should miss it.
Taking a gamble, Royle rushed over to Mulligan. There was still over a foot of fuse left. He snipped away the burning end and threw it over the fence, towards the River Dane. He was just wondering whether to get some water to throw into his prisoner's face when a random scrap of information popped into his mind. In the old bare-knuckle days, seconds had been in the habit of biting the earlobes of fighters to rouse them from a daze.
Royle applied the secateurs which he had acquired in the shed to Mulligan's right ear and snipped a vertical cut in the lobe. Nails woke up with a rush. Royle cut the fuse down to six inches. He touched his lighter to it and retired to his outcrop of rock. He heard Mulligan thrashing about and grunting right up to the big bang.
The concrete post had gone, but there was not much of a crater. Most of Nails Mulligan had gone too. It was a standard comedy death, Royle told himself, to blow up somebody and leave just a smoking pair of boots behind. All that was left of Mulligan was a piece of trouser leg attached to one of his shoes; which was not smoking. It was a pity, but he would not be able to tell Royle how he felt after being blown up by his own gelignite.
Feeling quite satisfied with his night's work, Royle returned to his borrowed van and headed back to Joe Potheroe's shop, wondering whether the antiques dealer would notice the loss of a gallon of petrol. He remembered later, on the bus back to Fenton, that he had been meaning to ask Nails about his nickname. His curiosity would have to remain unsatisfied, he told himself. It was rather dark to go scrambling about looking for one of his fingers to find out if the nail had been bitten down to the quick.

17. Collection

Detective Sergeant Brian Orwell had been up all night and could not stop yawning. First, there had been a report of an explosion; possibly a light aircraft crashing into the River Dane seven miles to the bleak north-west of Shepford. A uniformed patrol had been sent to investigate. After a long silence, one of the constables had reported by telephone from a nearby farmhouse. Their radio had packed up, but they had found a foot at the site of the explosion. Rather shakily, he added that it looked as though someone had blown himself up.
The case became a CID matter. Vehicles had crushed onto the riverside road. A forensic team had rushed to collect samples before the next shower washed the area clean. The foot, in a plastic bag, ended up in the boot of a car with the samples. Photo-flashes had seared the night. Moon-faced constables had waited in their cars, smoking nervously, and wondering whether they could be called upon to search by torchlight for other fragments of the sometime human being, praying that they would not, and knowing that they would.
Orwell had been called away as reluctant searchers were being winkled out of their vehicles. A report of a husband missing from his garden shed had come from Ullwood, eleven miles away by helicopter, but fourteen by road. A bright young copper had been shown a broken pair of glasses and signs of a struggle. He had noticed that part of the wooden floor had been disturbed; and he had found two sticks of gelignite and bomb-making materials neatly packed in polythene lunch boxes. Pieces had begun to fall into place.
Orwell decided that he had found some of the straight edges of the jigsaw puzzle, but the picture remained obscure.
Muddy coffee and a tasteless sandwich helped to wake him up slightly. Orwell scraped a hand over his stubbly cheeks and wondered whether DS Erskine still had the electric razor in his desk. His telephone clanged discordantly. His wife wanted to know whether to expect him back for lunch. Orwell picked up a pencil and said yes. His wife dictated the expected shopping list. He was stuffing the scrap of paper into the breast pocket of his jacket when Joe Erskine sat down beside his desk, looking disgustingly wide awake.
"Preliminary report from the lab," said the younger detective sergeant. "They're pretty sure Mulligan made the bomb that blew that girl up yesterday. Still no identification on her. Or the owner of the car. The forensic mob reckoned we're bloody lucky those perspex number plates didn't melt completely in the fire. And there's too many dentists with too many dental charts and too many bored assistants looking through them to expect anything this week. Maybe if they were on a computer ..."

"Maybe if everything about everyone was on a computer ...," Orwell interrupted sourly.
"Successful criminals would be too bright for thick coppers like us to catch them," Erskine finished. "That only works if the information's kept up to date. According to the records, the owner of the car she was in lives in the middle of a car-park in a shopping precinct. No forwarding address."
"Anything on the gun?"
"Made in the United States. We've not heard anything from them yet, and probably won't get anything useful. I've been getting some interesting things out of the computer, though," Erskine hinted.
"If you lend me your razor, I might listen to you," Orwell said with a sigh. His younger colleague could become tediously enthusiastic when talking about the information that he charmed out of the computer.
Erskine trotted to and from his desk to fetch the shaver. "The thing about computers is they're very useful for sorting patterns out of a mountain of data," Erskine continued. "If they'd put all the information from the Yorkshire Ripper inquiry on a computer instead of writing it all down on a quarter of a million little cards, they might have caught him a lot faster."
"Skip the hobby-horses," groaned Orwell. "What's this pattern of yours?"
"Deaths; violent ones; most of them written off as accidents." Erskine helped himself to one of Orwell's cigarettes and assumed a conspiratorial air. "They seem to come in groups every so often. Over the last five years, there's been four groups. This month's is typical. Wednesday the tenth; Paul Lawson, petty villain, crushed by a juggernaut while dead drunk, but he hadn't been drinking with any of his mates. Monday the fifteenth; Oliver Markham and pals, blown up, question mark. Possibility of arson in view of the intensity of the fire, possible one of them was shot.
"Thursday the eighteenth; Robert Henshall, layabout, sets about someone with his bike chain, falls into a hole, and part of a wall drops or is pushed onto him. Could be a partial footprint on his chest, suggesting he was kicked into the hole. And yesterday, Monday the twenty-second; a young girl, unidentified, blown up. Possibly a mistake because, being female, she doesn't fit the pattern. Now last night; Roy Mulligan, identified by the darning on his sock, blown up with his own explosives miles from anywhere. No sign of a vehicle or even a bike to take him out there."
"Where's the pattern in that?" Orwell said against a loud buzzing noise. He stretched his chin up to tackle his throat with the electric razor.
"Looking at the broad picture, there's a steady escalation," Erskine said patiently. "It starts with vicious little sods who'd cosh your brains out from behind for the loose change in your pockets. Sometimes it breaks down. That's where friend Henshall comes in. But the next step is someone with a bit more class, like Mulligan, and eventually, a couple of times, a professional hit-man. And mixed in with them; young, active men with money. Most of them with no obvious source of income, not a rich father like Markham."
"And where does this get you?" asked Orwell.
"The thing about patterns and theories is they stand and fall on their predictions," Erskine said cryptically.
"Like what?" invited Orwell.
"Like another stiff within a week or two; either a professional killer or an active man between twenty-one and thirty with unexplained money."
"There's a bloody cheerful story to take home to the wife," scoffed Orwell. "Are you going to tell that to KGB?" He inclined his head towards the adjoining office of Detective Inspector Rostov.
"Not yet," replied his younger colleague. "He'll just ask what I propose doing to prevent the next murder."
"You can always ask your bloody computer," grinned Orwell.

18. Vetting

Royle slept late. He had put away a couple of pints more than his usual ration the night before. His expedition into the country had left him with a powerful thirst. As he was dressing on a dull, chilly morning, he realized that he would have to make his own breakfast, and his guest would not have bought him a paper on her daily shopping expedition. His life had been reduced to its former simplicity.
Colin Mulgraham had spent an hour and a half in his office by coffee time. After telling his secretary that he would be back in an hour, he reclaimed his car and drove out into thin drizzle. Ten minutes later, he picked up a passenger, who sprinted across the pavement from a department store doorway, fine droplets glistening on his hair and overcoat.
Brian Rhyss had reached retirement age after a career as a moderately successful criminal. His Boswell Road security van ambush was still considered a classic in the trade. Although no longer on the active list; he could not face another spell inside; he remained on drinking terms with fellow professionals and acted, on occasion, as an intermediary between an insurance company and a gang which had acquired goods that were too difficult to dispose of. It was in this capacity that he had come to the attention of Colin Mulgraham.
Rhyss helped himself to a cigarette from the packet on the dashboard ledge and lit it with a disposable lighter. "I hear Nails Mulligan got his hair cut last night," he remarked. "Right down to his bloody ankles." Rhyss could admire an artist who used gelignite on safes and bank vaults, but he had nothing but contempt for those who murdered with bombs as a sideline. "I hear he's in the frame for that kid that copped it out Shepford way yesterday afternoon. Pity someone didn't get to him a bit sooner."
"I suppose these things can't always happen like clockwork," decided Mulgraham.
"There's a bloke called Lenny Suskin," remarked Rhyss, anticipating his driver's question. "Fancies himself as a bit of a Jackal," he added, reminding Mulgraham that the film of Frederick Forsyth's novel had been on television recently. "Only he doesn't wait for the target to duck before he pulls the bloody trigger."
"Sounds an interesting chap," commented Mulgraham, inviting further details.
Rhyss blew smoke at the windscreen and obliged. "Just been to Africa, I hear. Getting his knees brown. Put one into this wog's bullet-proof uniform from five hundred yards, so I heard. Got out with half the army trying to part his hair with a bullet. Shot Mr. President's popularity right out of the dumps. But he might be feeling a bit too rich to work at the moment. He'll need a bit of geeing up."
Mulgraham made thoughtful noises. Rhyss had deduced that his driver played a deadly game with assassins instead of hiring them for a conventional job. Every single name that he had mentioned had either dropped out of sight permanently or had turned up dead. But Rhyss had no qualms about issuing death-warrants. He aimed The Gent, as he called Mulgraham mentally, only at lone wolves, who lacked close friends and relatives who might feel inclined to seek out those responsible for turning the killer's trade against him.
Mulgraham circled the block. He handed his companion an envelope as the department store came into view again. "Buy your wife some flowers," he suggested.
"Yeah, right," grinned Rhyss, knowing that if he started buying his wife flowers, she would assume that he was up to no good and his life would become hell for a while.
Mulgraham dropped his passenger and headed back to his office. His dummy company had just received a job application from one Leonard Suskin. It was time for a firm of confidential inquiry agents to carry out some discreet research into Suskin's background to find out what sort of an employee he would make.

Mulgraham collected the report the following morning. He learned that Leonard James Suskin did not appear to have a job locally, but seemed comfortably well off. He was divorced, childless, and paid no maintenance to his ex-wife, whom he had divorced because of her adultery with a man called Royle. A photograph of Royle had been included, perhaps to flesh out a rather sparse report.
Mulgraham stared in shock at the picture. The face was unmistakably that of one of his couriers. He had found the means of geeing up Suskin. He wondered whether he could ask for a discount on a labour of love. It was not every day that an assassin was pointed at the man who had broken up his marriage.
The conclusion of the report was a recommendation not to employ Suskin as Special Branch appeared to be interested in him; for a reason unspecified. Mulgraham assumed that ripples from the African job had reached the UK. But, he decided, if Suskin acted quickly, as seemed likely, he would be able to get the job out of the way before the forces of international politics caught up with him.

19. Confrontation

A small package brought Royle down to the front door at the end of the week. It contained two thousand pounds in ten-pound notes and a photograph. Royle started to laugh as soon as he had uncovered it. He did not have to read the name on the back to identify Lenny Suskin. The game was still in progress, and it had taken an interesting turn.
Royle packed a bag and loaded it into his new car. Then he transferred one of Olly Markham's pearl-handled revolvers and a box of ammunition to the dashboard. His new car was the same make and colour as the bombed vehicle and it wore the same year code in the licence number. The sale had been back-dated two months. The fact that the change of ownership had not reached official records would be ascribed to inefficiency at Swansea if anyone asked.
Royle had spent the money found in Nails Mulligan's shed, topped up by a thousand from his garage roof, on his confusing new car. It looked exactly like the old one, but it had a slightly different smell, and he had to get used to a different set of pedal pressures.
Royle backed to the left out of his garage. His dashboard clock was showing 11:05 as he rolled down Mulberry Street. He turned left, onto Boxbey Road, and then right up Perkin Lane, towards the traffic lights at the sewer repair. Leaving Fenton, he took the road to the south-east. He crossed the railway's cutting on a girder bridge and passed through a short, stone tunnel in the aqueduct, collecting a couple of drips from the canal on his windscreen. He followed the road through Welling, Olly Markham's former haunt, checking frequently for pursuit.
There was no one behind him when he turned towards the north, onto a long, straight stretch of road. He continued his wide circle through Marloe, Alderhey, Denton, Ullwood, former home of Nails Mulligan, and Totridge. He reached Shepford after covering a further three miles to complete his quarter century at the wheel.
The town could offer three decent hotels. Royle chose the Oxford, which was not quite as pretentious as the Grand. One of the faces of the town hall clock was showing twenty to twelve. By tradition, the other three were a minute slower.
Royle made a left turn at the traffic lights. The Oxford Hotel lay a quarter of a mile down the road, opposite a park. Royle registered as David Bedford, a name recalled from a record sleeve, and wrote the number of his car in the box provided; so that he could be notified instantly if somebody bashed into it in the car-park. He was wearing black cords and a matching leather jacket instead of a business suit, but his jacket was genuine leather and looked expensive enough to keep the 'hotel full' apology in cold storage.
He followed a uniformed minion of about his father's age to his second-floor room. The porter was not expecting the tip which Royle would not have offered. Royle had noticed the words 'service included' on the list of tariffs. He made a note of the hotel's telephone number and went out again. He was becoming used to finding a gun when he put his hand into his right side pocket of his anorak. Worried about bunging up the barrel with fluff, he had enclosed the weapon in a plastic bag.
He bought a couple of paperbacks at the newsagent further down the block, then crossed the road to the telephone boxes at the corner of the park. His first call was a message telling his despatcher how to contact him in the event of a rush job. The second was to a Bleching number. Then he went back to the hotel to wait.

Royle was sitting in the coffee lounge with one of his paperbacks when the call came through. Lunch-time had come and gone, and he had descended from his room for afternoon tea. The waiter with the telephone confirmed chat he was Mr Bedford, plugged in the instrument, and ghosted away.
Royle lifted the receiver. "You have a call for Bedford?" he invited.
"Putting you through, sir," said the hotel's operator.
"Mr Bedford?" said a suspicious voice.
"Speaking," Royle confirmed, giving a short answer and no clues.
"You wanted me to call you about Julie?" Lenny Suskin dropped the name of his ex-wife as a sort of password.
"I got a photo of you through the post," replied Royle.
"You got one of me?" Suskin sounded baffled. "I've been trying to get in touch with you to tell you the same thing. What's going on, Johnny?"
"There's something I'd like to talk to you about. Did you get some train fare with the photo?"
"Couple of grand," returned Suskin casually.
"How do you fancy an off-season trip to Eastbourne? I'll meet you at that café near Julie's favourite Martello tower about half-twelve tomorrow morning."
"See you there," agreed Suskin.

Strong, gusting winds were battering spray against the chalk cliffs on a grey morning. Lenny Suskin, looking damp and bedraggled, closed the café door in a lull and paused to flatten his tangled hair. He was of average height, stocky, and he had longish, mid-brown hair, which he combed forward into a fringe and straight down on either side from a central parting. Bushy sideburns ran right down to his jaw.
Spotting Royle lounging unobtrusively against the far wall, Suskin crossed the café, impaling the waitress with an appraising stare on the move. He ordered double hamburger and chips, and coffee for two as he removed his anorak, then he gave his attention to Royle, who slid a Polaroid photograph across the plastic-topped table.
"Is this some kind of wind-up, Johnny?" Suskin asked, studying a picture of himself emerging from his local butcher.
"A two-grand wind-up?" returned Royle. "You weren't followed, were you?"
"What, me?" scoffed Suskin. "What's going on?"
"Someone's been sending me photos and cash," Royle explained. "Yours is the third."
"Any point in asking what happened to the other two?"
"I should cross them off your Christmas card list. They had a go at me before I'd figured out what was going on."
"Self-defence and a hell of a lot of luck?" grinned Suskin.
"Someone's playing a game with me. He's setting me up, but he's also giving me a chance to take the others out first. And sending me cash for protection expenses."
"But it took you till number three to work out what was going on?" laughed Suskin. "And now you've got a real grudge fight. Yours truly against the former best mate who ran off with his wife. Well, he can't be that clever if he doesn't know Julie had the hottest pants in town. And I talked you into giving my private detective evidence of adultery. She got the shock of her life when I booted her out and told her I was getting a divorce."
"I know, you keep telling me," nodded Royle. "She seemed quite surprised when I booted her out for cheating on me. Ever hear from her now?"
"Funny you should say that. I thought I'd given her the slip. But I had another threatening letter a week or two ago. Some nonsense about her being out of work and wanting some maintenance. In fact, things are a bit warm generally at the moment. I took a fairly dodgy job. High risk for high reward. And bloody hard to get in and out. Especially out."
"And did you?" Royle asked as the assassin's food and the coffee arrived. Royle had lunched already.
Suskin smiled at the waitress, then applied HP Sauce to his chips and tomato ketchup to his hamburgers. Royle stirred sugar into his second cup of coffee.
"I got out about thirty seconds ahead of a bunch of angry dark-skinned gents," Suskin said with a smile. "Anxious to find out how much lead they could pump into me before I croaked. Leaping into the moving plane, and all that."
"You should be in films. Stunt man," suggested Royle.
"Doesn't pay as well. And I'm bloody sure a couple of characters from Special Branch have been sniffing around me. They can't have anything on me yet; but you never know if they keep digging. My client wanted to be shot in his bullet-proof vest, but some of his mates wanted one between his eyes. They're a little peevish at the moment."
"I saw that on TV. So that was you, was it? Maybe you should take your two grand and scarper," suggested Royle.
"Maybe," nodded Suskin. "But I'm interested. This bloke just sending me a cardboard box full of cash and a photo. Sort of saying: 'I know what you do. Get on with it, enjoy yourself, and there'll be more when the job's done.'"
"Except you don't work that way."
"Right." Suskin nodded and loaded his mouth with chips.
Royle turned to watch the sea as the assassin tackled his food. Large waves were rolling in, and exploding if the wind caught them as they broke. The café's picture window was speckled with either rain or salt spray, but the town had attracted a ration of Saturday visitors, hardy souls come to view the fortifications built during the Napoleonic Wars and the Royal National Lifeboat Institution museum unobstructed by summer crowds.
Suskin cleaned his plate with a slice of bread and butter, then offered a cigarette packet. The waitress, who looked full of Eastern promise, took his plate and an order for more coffee.
"So," said Suskin, "what's the brilliant plan?"
"First step, I've moved out of my flat," returned Royle. "He'd expect that."
"The bloke playing games with you," nodded Suskin. "Yes, things are stacked fairly heavily against you. I know you by sight, so I'm not going to let you stroll up to me and stick a knife in me. You'll have to try dropping something heavy on me from a great height. I wonder how long it'll take him to realize I'm not playing."
"Couple of days?" hazarded Royle. "It's a bit of a cheek, expecting you to knock someone off for just two grand. Especially when you'd be the number one suspect."
"Oh, I'd be very subtle," protested the assassin. "A nice accident. I hope you've got plenty of books in your hotel room, Johnny."
They chatted for a further half-hour before they went their separate ways. The great divorce conspiracy had turned them into strangers to maintain credibility. Suskin carried on up the coast to visit a lady friend. Royle took a look around the town and bought some more books before returning to Shepford.

20. Manoeuvres

His telephone woke Royle the following morning. He assumed that he had overslept and that his despatcher was calling. Then he realized that he could not remember being disturbed by cleaners anxious to do him.
"Good-morning, Mr Bedford," said a voice with a Yorkshire accent and a hint of sarcastic chuckle in the background. "About Julie. Call the number you used yesterday." Lenny Suskin came from Leeds and he had retained his accent despite occasional attempts to smooth it into a less distinctive hybrid.
"Aaah, yeah," said Royle, struggling to wake up. "Give me about ten minutes."
"Someone not out of bed yet?" chuckled Suskin, who knew that his friend was an habitual late riser. "Ten minutes."
The telephone began to purr into his ear. Royle replaced the receiver and struggled into his clothes. Washed and curious, he crossed the road to the telephone-boxes at the corner of the park.
Suskin's answering service in Bleching was a woman called Sandy. She sounded about Royle's age; and like someone worth getting to know on the telephone. But the man himself answered as soon as the ringing started.
"Something up?" asked Royle.
"As far as you're concerned," agreed Suskin. "I had a special delivery letter this morning. Shoved through the door. With one of your photos in it. And guess what was on the back? Your hotel and your room number. Someone has a very efficient intelligence service."
"Time for me to move on again," decided Royle.
"It's hardly worth telling you to keep in touch, the way things are going," chuckled Suskin. "Your friend must be getting a bit impatient by now. I mean, it's been two whole days, and I'm supposed to be a professional."
"Yeah," agreed Royle, not particularly amused.
Royle returned to his hotel and found that breakfast was still being served at eight-fifty on a Sunday morning. Only two people knew where he was, he decided, as he tackled egg, bacon, sausage, and tomato. He had given his phone number to his despatcher and Lenny Suskin's answering service. And he was certain that he had not been followed from the flat in Fenton to Shepford.
Assuming that his car had not been bugged, that he had not been followed by a whole army of people to prevent him spotting a tail, and that agents had not visited every hotel and bed-and-breakfast pub for miles around, the leak had to be his despatcher. There was one sure way to test his theory.
Royle packed up and settled his bill after breakfast. He drove into the centre of Shepford, booked a room at the Albert Lodge, and passed on his new telephone number to his despatcher. After sending the same information to Suskin via Sandy from a call-box, he settled back with his library to await developments.
Two hours later, Sandy called to tell him that a young boy had delivered another address to Suskin's flat. On being offered a tip of one pound, the youngster had remembered that the man who had given him the envelope was youngish, well-dressed, wore sun-glasses and a bushy moustache, and drove a silver-grey Jaguar with the previous year's letter on the number plate.
By no stretch of the imagination could Royle's despatcher be called youngish. His weathered face showed every one of his approximately forty-five years; and a few more besides. Royle could not believe that he had thousands of pounds to spend on hired killers. He was just another employee, like Royle. His despatcher had to be a link to someone else; either actively or innocently; if he was not being followed. Royle decided to cut the despatcher out of the chain by becoming unavailable for a few days.

On Monday morning, Royle moved back up the road to the Oxford Hotel. His reception was more immediately cordial than before. He had become a valued former customer, who had paid in fraud-free cash on booking out and had not pinched any of the towels or ashtrays from his room.
After transmitting his new position to Suskin, Royle left a message for his despatcher, telling him that he would be on the move for the next few days, and that giving him a phone number was impractical. The message-taker hummed to himself in a throaty voice, then told Royle that he had to keep in touch because a special order was coming up. Royle offered to phone the message service at about ten-thirty every day to find out if he was needed. He was surprised to find his compromise accepted.

At eleven o'clock on the following morning, Sandy asked him to phone her back. Royle dashed through the persistent light rain to the rank of call-boxes, wondering whether the performance was really necessary. Lenny Suskin had received another message; by first-class post this time. Royle had moved again to an unknown address, and the client wanted to meet Suskin. He had been invited to put in an appearance at The Balcony, a club, well-known for its gloomy intimacy, which lay just off Dean Street in the sleazy part of London, W1. The client seemed to be getting impatient.
Suskin was quite amused to hear about the rain in Shepford. While not exactly flooded with late autumn sun, Bleching was enjoying a mild and dry morning. Suskin replaced the receiver and lit a thoughtful cigarette. Sandy arched carefully plucked eyebrows at him. She was thirty-two years old, four years older than Suskin, twice married and once divorced but on her own again, and she ran a confidential letter office and answering service from her council flat.
"Sounds like your mate's in a lot of bother," she remarked.
"Yeah," agreed Suskin. "Doing anything tonight?"
"Depends," Sandy said cautiously.
"Oh, you can keep your clothes on," grinned Suskin. "And there'll be a tenner in it. And a couple of drinks."
"Yeah, okay," Sandy agreed. "Throw in dinner and you're on."

The stripper was well into the heavyweight division. Someone near Lenny Suskin kept going on about 'all that meat and no gravy' in a happy babble. Nothing very startling ever happened in The Balcony, but it was tarted up like a den of vice to make the out-of-town punters think that they had found a club which hovered on the fringes of legality. Reasonably priced drinks were poured from expensive bottles. The clients assumed that they were not being ripped off; but the owners of the labels would have been interested to learn what was being passed off as their products.
Suskin had been waiting for ten minutes and had barely touched his whisky and ginger ale. His client was late, but Suskin put his tardiness down to natural caution. Then he became aware of someone behind his left arm.
"I see you got my message. No, don't turn around." The voice sounded young and accustomed to giving orders.
"Someone's been sending me photos," Suskin returned, turning his head back to face the stage. "Can't think why."
"Is that why you've done nothing about them?"
"That's not the way I do business."
"Okay, so how do you do business?" the voice invited in an intimate murmur.
"The proper way to do business is to discuss the job with the client and set a price."
"How you do the job is entirely your affair," Colin Mulgraham said impatiently. "All we need discuss is the price."
"Do you want an accident or an example?" returned Suskin.
"I don't follow you," said Mulgraham.
"Do you want others to know what happened and tremble in their boots?" Suskin explained. "Or a quiet departure?"
"I'm not bothered," Mulgraham decided.
"As I'm bound to be the number one suspect, it's going to cost you fifteen grand," murmured Suskin. "Nine up front, six behind."
"If I get the balance of the deposit to you, will you get on with it?" Mulgraham said, still impatient.
"The matter will be advanced to the research stage," Suskin said with a nod, quoting a former CIA man of his acquaintance.
"Good!" said the voice behind him. "Stay put for a further half-hour."
"I ought to charge extra for having to put up with this," commented Suskin as the stripper shed the last piece of glitter and slid her pink mass behind a curtain.
The presence had gone. Lights brightened slightly to produce a red glow; like the emergency lighting in a submarine. Sandy drifted to his table as the comedian bounced on stage to turn the air bluer than the fog of cigarette smoke. Suskin pushed a warm brandy across to her.
"Dead suspicious bloke," she remarked. "Trying to look every way at once. But he looked right through me when I gave him the eye. Must have thought I was a tart."
"Get the number of his car?" interrupted Suskin.
"'Course!" groaned Sandy. She handed him a scrap of paper. "Silver Jag; big, bushy moustache; shades. Sound familiar?"
Suskin nodded. "Sounds like the bloke that gave the kid my mate's new address on Sunday."
"Can we go now?"
"The man said to wait for half an hour."
"Sod that for a game of soldiers," Sandy said firmly. "You promised me some dinner. And he's buggered off now."
"Yeah, right," agreed Suskin. "I don't think I could take much more of this place. The excitement's a real killer."

21. Low Dive

Despite a number of hints, a nightcap and breakfast were not included in the package. In view of their business arrangement, Suskin decided not to push his luck. He dropped Sandy off at her flat, then headed for home. He liked to think that he had a sixth sense which warned him of impending danger. Hunches had steered him clear of trouble in the past. But he was experiencing neither a crawling sensation between his shoulder-blades nor a throbbing in his bullet-scarred left thigh as he stepped out of his car to open the garage door.
A rapidly moving shadow told him that all was not well. Suskin folded and twisted back into his car. Something heavy smashed against the roof instead of his head. Suskin lashed out with a foot; and caught a sensitive area. Seeking to take advantage of his attacker's pain, he lunged out of the car; only to receive a numbing blow on his left shoulder. He sagged. A reinforced toe-cap slammed against his thigh.
Suskin went with his fall, then threw himself into a roll. His eyes were becoming accustomed to the deep shadows beyond the beams of his headlights. The man who had received the boot in the groin was starting to take an interest in the proceedings again. His companion was aiming another blow with his crowbar as Suskin regained his feet.
Suskin stepped outside the blow, caught the arm, and heaved. A face met a brick garage wall at speed. The wall came off better. Suskin retrieved the flat .25 automatic from the holster above his left ankle and aimed it at the other man, holding the weapon up to catch any available light on the dull metal of the barrel.
"Drop that," he warned as the man advanced with his crowbar raised.
Driven by pain and rage, or perhaps too stupid to perceive the threat, the man continued to advance. Suskin fired twice. The explosions were quiet coughs. Running out of momentum, the man sagged forward and released his weapon. His face hit the tarmac with a hollow slap. The crowbar clattered into the shadows.
A curtain moved away from a bedroom window, spilling an almost solid beam of light. Suskin spotted a soft drink can near a heap of discarded boxes and other junk. He picked it up and heaved it in the approximate direction of the window, which had begun to open. Tin-plated steel clanged against the wall. The window shot downwards and the curtains joined again. The occupant of the house did not want to attract further missiles from the drunks in the alley.
The other man had rebounded from the garage wall. He was lying flat on his back with dark blood pouring from his nose and a deep cut over his left eye. After putting his car away, Suskin had a quick look around. He found a strange car parked at the end of the row of garages.
Suskin kicked his second attacker's leg; hard; but failed to provoke a reaction. Then he crouched and explored the intruder's pockets. The keys in the jacket fitted the strange car. Suskin backed it to the dead man and crammed him into the boot. He sprawled the other one on the back seat after tying his hands behind his back with PVC tape.
Ghostly groaning noises reached him as Suskin ended a short journey at a lay-by. On his left, beyond the fence, a grassy bank ran down to the broad, wind-rippled expanse of the reservoir. Suskin turned round to shine a torch into his attacker's eyes.
"Right, what's your game?" he demanded. "And if you don't speak up, you'll get more than your nose broken."
"Your wife hired us," said the man groggily. "She didn't like you ignoring her. We were supposed to remind you she's got bills to pay."
"My ex-wife, do you mean?" returned Suskin. A sudden rush of anger flowed through him as he moved out onto the road again. "The one I divorced because she ran off with one of my mates?"
"She left that bit out," groaned the prisoner.
"Did she really?" snarled Suskin. "And it didn't occur to you to find out?"
Suskin made a left turn. When the car was travelling in a straight line again, he bailed out. The vehicle rushed down the slope and onto the jetty used by summer power-boaters. About half-way along, a slight curvature in its path brought it to the side of the planked surface. The car dipped and landed on its back in the water with a tremendous splash.
Suskin headed for home at a trot. Travelling across country instead of following the looping road, he had about a mile to cover. His ex-wife had never found out what he did for a living. She thought that he was a fairly harmless wheeler-dealer, who did most of his business by telephone and made the occasional trip abroad as much for the duty-free allowance and nights out with colleagues as on business.
If she had suspected the truth, she would not have set second-division crowbar merchants on him, Suskin decided. Julie was sly enough to make as complete a list as memory would allow of his trips abroad, leave it with someone trustworthy with instructions to open the envelope in the event of her sudden death, and then blackmail her ex-husband. And enjoy blackmailing him.
She was due a few lumps when the heat died down, Suskin decided.
His life was becoming full of complications. First, there was the Special Branch interest. Then some mysterious character was trying to get him to take out Johnny Royle for no particular reason. And now his ex-wife was hiring idiots to stir his brains with crowbars. Perhaps the time had come for some simplification.
His first priority was to change the barrel and firing pin of his personal pop-gun. They were the only direct link between himself and the two slugs in the body in the boot of the sunken car. He should have shot the other one too. Giving him the illusion that escape was possible from the sinking car had been an expression of Suskin's anger at the sneak attack. He was not normally given to such sadistic gestures. A quick, clean kill was his motto. A concussed man with his hands taped behind his back had no chance. But he had not been a very nice person, and Suskin did not feel like wasting sympathy on him.
There was an icy wind blowing towards the reservoir, nipping at his temples and cooling his hot anger. Suskin was surprised to find just how charged and irritated he felt, and how painful his left shoulder had become now that the burst of adrenaline had ebbed and allowed his body to take notice of distracting aches. And his leg was throbbing where it had been kicked. He had been in the wars; and he knew it.
It was a real turn-up, he told himself, someone actually being paid to have a go at him. But the outcome had been just the same as the conclusion of one of his own jobs; he was walking away from it. Or trotting away from it, he thought, slowing to a walk to cushion the impacts to his damaged shoulder and thigh.
But he had been more of a handful than the crowbar merchants had been expecting, as both of them had learned in the brief time they had taken to die. The unexpected in the form of Suskin's ankle gun had proved decisive. His attackers had not done their homework. And they had paid the price of incompetence.
Yet it was unsettling to have someone sent to get him, even if the object had been to administer a severe beating. Royle was taking his brushes with death very coolly, but Johnny Royle had always had a lot of nerve. If anything, he tended to err on the side of overconfidence because he did not believe in worrying about trouble until it appeared on his doorstep. He reacted to his circumstances instead of following one of a number of prepared plans when the trouble started. One day, he would jump in the wrong direction.
Royle had helped to set up the alibi for Suskin's first job; the first and only time that he had taken care of someone known to him. Royle had invited two birds back to his flat for the intimate party and had laid on a generous spread of food and drink. Suskin had pretended to crash out first. Royle had fed Suskin's bird a powdered sleeping-tablet in a sausage roll. Then Royle and his bird had put them to bed and continued the party on their own.
Suskin had ducked out of the window and made the round trip in record time. When he returned to the flat, Royle and his bird had been larking about still on the settee in the living-room. Suskin had taken a sleeping tablet himself to enhance the illusion. He had been the last to wake up the following morning, much to the amusement of the others.
The police had given him a routine pull a couple of days later, as part of a programme of interviews with everybody who had not been on friendly terms with the deceased. His alibi had been probed and he had heard nothing more. He assumed that the police had had better suspects available.
Suskin had learned one important lesson from his first job; always hit strangers to avoid police interest which could be recalled in the future. But he had made one rather large mistake. He had started to date Royle's bird. And three months later, he had married Julie Crawford. The marriage had lasted eleven months. Then Royle had helped to bring it to a speedy conclusion. Now, two years later, his ex-wife had got tired of working for a living and she was trying to make trouble for him again.
The police had not approached him again since his first job. But if they heard that Lenny Suskin was lying in hospital, broken and bruised as a result of a violent assault, or that bodies riddled with bullets had turned up in close proximity to his usual haunts, that would bring them running. And there was the Special Branch interest to consider.
Maybe it was time for Royle to do his mate Lenny a final favour. One that would do both of them a lot of good.

22. Termination

A telephone's ringing shocked Royle out of sleep on the last day of the month. October was on the way out. Complete disorientation lasted a few moments, then his strange surroundings became a hotel room in Shepford rather than the bedroom of his flat in Fenton, and the telephone was an easy stretch away.
"Been reading yourself to sleep again?" mocked a voice with a Yorkshire accent. "Happy Halloween, Johnny."
"I suppose you've been up since dawn?" groaned Royle.
"If you're going shopping today, I might see you," continued Lenny Suskin. "Don't forget it's early closing day."
After about ten seconds of blank silence, Royle made the connection. "In about twenty minutes?"
"Right, then," agreed Suskin.

Shaved and looking fairly alert, Royle left his car in the cash-and-carry's car park and walked through the ranks of electrical necessities to the rear entrance. The bookshop lay two streets away. Having acquired a couple of second-hand paperbacks, he took Suskin two doors down Hope Street and allowed him to buy breakfast at Ryan's Café.
"You're a fifteen-grand job," Suskin remarked as he tasted his coffee. "There was seven more waiting for me on the doormat when I eventually got home last night." He went on to tell Royle about his meeting with the client and the fun and games at his garage.
"You have been enjoying yourself," chuckled Royle. "Get anything from the number of your client's car?"
"An obliging computer says it belongs to a firm called Jay and Bee Systems, Ltd. I had a look at their office before I came down here."
"What, this morning?" Royle asked with a frown.
"About one o'clock this morning. It was a bit dusty, but the chair behind the desk and the phone were clean enough. No recent papers. Not very much goes on there. It's just a convenient address for someone."
"So we're not much further on?"
"Looks like you and me are going to have to lock horns, as they say in all the best Westerns. And it might be an idea to let you win."
"Yeah?" Royle frowned and sliced another corner from his bacon sandwich.
"Lenny Suskin is getting a bit too hot. And if you get another photo through the post, it might be useful to have a friendly ghost around to watch your back."
"What would you like me to do?" grinned Royle. "Stab you to death on the front steps of the town hall? A touch of the Julius Caesars?"
"I'd prefer to go missing, believed killed," Suskin decided.
"How attached are you to your motor? I've got a couple of forty-five revolvers stashed away. I could shoot your car up a bit, and you could bleed a bit. And we could maybe run it off the road."
"That's a bit strong, isn't it? My bloody car?"
"Is it worth fifteen grand?" countered Royle.
"Yeah," admitted Suskin, "I suppose I'm still well ahead."
"I seem to remember someone telling me that possessions are excess baggage in a crisis," added Royle. "The survivor drops them and concentrates on saving his life, not his luggage."
"Your memory's too bloody good, Johnny," complained Suskin.
"We might as well do it today," grinned Royle. "Unless you've got any packing you want to do."
"Hang about!" protested Suskin. "I want to fix up somewhere to lay low for a while. And another set of wheels. Let's make it tomorrow, shall we?"
"Okay." Royle shrugged. "You know where Briarley is? About three or four miles north of here?"
"I'll find it."
"I'll meet you about a mile along the road from Briarley to Bowcross. There's a bit of a wood and a bridge across a stream. Just past there. About half-eleven tomorrow morning. Unless it's pissing down. If it is, ring me at the hotel and we'll sort something else out."
"Right," nodded Suskin. "You can tell me where you got the forty-fives later. I'd better get moving. I've got a lot of sorting out to get done before tomorrow. It's good to have a mate you can rely on, Johnny."
"I'm looking forward to having a friendly ghost to watch my back," grinned Royle. "See you, Lenny."

Colin Mulgraham let himself into the offices of Charger Services and wound back the videotape. Two people had visited the office next door since he had reset the video-recorder; only one of them authorized to be there. The second was his receiver, delivering a body belt. After watching the first shadowy figure prowling dreamily round the office in slow motion, like the. Six Million Dollar Man in a hurry, Mulgraham realized that he looked an awful lot like his hired assassin.
Suskin, he assumed, was trying to find out something about his client. Meeting him had been an error of judgement, but his interest would die when he had completed his contract.
Mulgraham had lost contact with Royle, apart from his daily calls to the message service. He decided to give the assassin a couple of days' grace before offering a helping hand; by supplying the time and place of a meeting between Royle and the despatcher. He had made noises about a special order, and Royle seemed cool enough to contemplate making a trip to Holland while dodging an assassin.
As he crawled through his hatch to the offices of Jay and Bee Systems to recover the body belt of cocaine, Mulgraham found himself hoping that Royle would be able to take Suskin by surprise. His sympathies lay with a talented amateur; like himself.
He would be terribly disappointed if Royle proved not to be the right material; as let down as he had felt on hearing the news of Olly Markham's death. A lot of time, money, and nervous energy went into the selection of a worthy opponent for his occasional duels.
Mulgraham had once been attacked by a thief with a knife. As he had been carrying a large sum of money, he had resisted. Desperation had brought him out on top at the end of an untidy brawl, and he had felt fully justified in killing his assailant with his own knife.
Afterwards, when the emotional surge of battle had faded, he had been able to pull off a risky deal with a new assurance. His brush with death had reminded him of his mortality and had given him the resolution to take the occasional big risks required to make his brief existence comfortable and interesting. But Mulgraham was not suicidal. When he fought one of his duels, he was always careful to shade the odds in his own favour.

Thursday began grey and chilly. Light drizzle was falling as Royle left the Oxford Hotel, zipped up in the blue anorak with red stripes on the sleeves. The weather forecast had predicted that the temperature would rise no higher than the middle fifties of the rest of the week. Royle had booked out of his hotel. With any luck, he would be able to return to his flat. But if the drizzle had discouraged Lenny Suskin, he would make a routine change of bolt-hole.
He drove out to Totridge, then turned towards the River Dane. Briarley lay four miles away. He turned left again at the centre of the village. Suskin was waiting at the side of the road, just beyond the stream, as arranged. He was wearing a lightweight cagoule and he looked in need of warming up. Royle turned onto a side-road, which was used mainly by farm vehicles, and stopped out of sight of the road to Bowcross.
"Nice day for it," remarked Suskin, catching him up.
Royle opened the passenger door and offered his friend a cigarette. "Great," he agreed. "How are we going to work this?"
Suskin stripped off his driving gloves and pulled on a thin surgical glove. "Bring the piece?"
"In the dash," said Royle, nodding towards it.
Suskin opened the dashboard locker and took out a heavy object wrapped in a piece of white tee-shirt and enclosed in a polythene bag. "This cost a few bob," he decided, running a professional eye over the weapon. "And it's been through the hands of a gunsmith to silk up the action. Where did you get it? If it's not a rude question."
"Christmas cracker," Royle returned with a poker face.
Suskin had told him on more than one occasion that anyone who confessed his crimes was an idiot, no matter how good a friend his confidant seemed. But Suskin knew that Royle would tell his tale after a token period of reticence.
"Yeah, I suppose I had that coming," grinned Suskin. He turned his thoughts to the job in hand. "I got a hypodermic off this junkie I know. Used to be quite a nice girl. On the game now, of course." He tapped his inside pocket gently. "I've got a couple of samples of Suskin Group A in self-sealing plastic bags. I was playing Dracula with my arm while I was waiting for you. We'll shoot the car up a bit with your popgun. And splash a bit of blood around inside."
"It's a bit on the thin side," observed Royle. "I don't know how much blood you've got there, but unless it's about three or four pints, you could easily have walked away from the pile-up. Maybe you should have robbed a blood bank."
"One snag," grinned Suskin. "When they collect the stuff at a blood bank, they mix it with preservatives and things. Now wouldn't that look funny on a forensic report?"
"Yeah," nodded Royle. "All right, it's your funeral."
"And I've got this sandbag. We'll put the last shot through the windscreen, lined up with about where my heart would be. If a bullet went into the car and they can't find it, it's reasonable to suppose it stayed in me."
"Okay, let's do it," decided Royle. "What are the operating gloves for?"
"I don't want gun oil soaking into the leather of my driving gloves," explained Suskin. "I suppose it's a bit late in your case."
"Just a bit," admitted Royle.
"You'd better get a new pair tomorrow," advised Suskin. "In case the fuzz give you a tug. Checking up on my enemies. Especially the sod that wrecked my marriage."
"They don't know where I am," grinned Royle.
"Do it anyway," insisted Suskin.
He loaded the revolver and went back to the road. They had a good view in either direction, and nothing was coming. Using a two-handed grip, Suskin fired four shots into his car. Two hit the boot, and two went through the back window and blew exit holes in the windscreen. Then he returned to the vehicle, strapped himself in securely and put on a crash helmet.
Once he had worked up some speed, Suskin stamped on the brakes. His car skidded off the wet road and rammed a tree on the left at about twenty miles per hour. Miraculously, the doubly punctured and crazed windscreen remained in place.
"I reckon we'd better put a hole in the side window," Suskin decided as he removed his crash-helmet. "The windscreen might shatter if we do any more to it."
"Hey, look out! There's someone coming," warned Royle.
A car approaching from the direction of Bowcross had crested a rise and was sinking out of sight into a long, shallow dip in the road.
"Change of plan," said Suskin, throwing his crash-helmet onto the grass behind his car. "Let me think."
Royle took a final drag from his cigarette and flicked it into the sodden roadside shrubbery. He was holding the gun, wrapped in a rag to keep it dry, and wishing for better weather. The raw day was nipping his fingers through the thin leather of his driving gloves, and he could have done with thicker socks.
"Right, got it!" said Suskin.
After a rapid explanation, Suskin got back behind the wheel of his car. Grinning, Royle took the gun into the trees.
The other car approached them at speed. It slowed when the driver noticed a dark blue vehicle on the grass verge with its nose crumpled against a tree. Suskin opened his door and lurched to the road, a vivid bloodstain splashed across his pale face. The other driver squealed to a halt.
Suskin staggered over to the other car. An explosion hurled him onto the bonnet. Red droplets splashed onto the windscreen. Some were flicked away immediately by the wipers, but others remained outside their arcs.
Then Royle stepped out of cover, a sinister, hooded figure, with his jersey pulled up over his nose and his anorak collar turned up as a secondary mask for the lower part of his face. The driver of the other car was watching in horror as Suskin slid off his bonnet, leaving behind a liquid red smear.
Royle extended his arms, copying Suskin's two-handed grip, took careful aim, and fired the pistol. The heavy bullet crashed in through the windscreen, a foot from their witness's head, and out through a rear side window.
Heart racing, the fortuitous spectator fumbled for reverse, then put his foot down. The car screamed back down the road in a cloud of smoke. An involuntary skid turned it right round. The driver raced up through his forward gears, fleeing for his life, trying to keep his eyes on the road, not the crazed hole in his windscreen.
"That went off quite well," said Royle, trotting over to his friend.
"Drag me to the side of the road," ordered Suskin, running through the plot in his mind like a film director. "Then bring your car here and drag me into the back."
Royle followed the script with the body. When he had drive his car to where Suskin lay, he spread a large plastic sheet on the floor and the back seat of his car to protect them from his passenger's wet and bloody garments.
"There's a change of clothes in the back of my car," Suskin added when Royle had dragged him from the verge to the back of his vehicle. "Don't forget the sandbag in the boot. And my crash-helmet."
"It's all right for some, being bloody dead," Royle called as he completed the tidying-up operation. "Someone else has to do all the bloody work. What did you think of my shooting?"
"Not bad for an amateur. I was expecting you to miss the car and put one in me by accident," Suskin admitted.
"Hark at the expert!" scoffed Royle, well pleased with his effort.
Suskin had stripped off his bloodstained garments and he was mopping his face with a piece of rag soaked in sweet tea when Royle had turned round and he was moving away from the scene of the crime. Satisfied with the clean-up job, Suskin dried himself and pulled on a tee-shirt and a tent-like greenish jersey. Then he changed from jeans to a pair of slimfit grey flannels, which were fifteen years out of fashion. He had even packed spare shoes and socks.
"A complete change of clothing for a new identity," he remarked to Royle as he checked through the pockets of his discarded garments.
"Not bad for the spur of the moment," applauded Royle.
"In my business, you have to be ready to drop everything and disappear," Suskin told him through a grin. "There's always the chance something might go wrong, no matter how clever you are. I'm really three people; or I was till you junked Lenny Suskin. From now on, you'll have to remember to call me Bob. Short for Robert Parker."
"A genuine alternative identity?"
"Bank account, passport, the lot."
"There's nothing like being prepared, I suppose. Has Julie got any life insurance on you?"
"I had a fifty-grand policy," laughed Suskin. "But I packed it in when she started playing around. I'm not sure she knows that. Thinks I'm using it to save up for my old age."
"So where do we go now?" Royle asked as he turned right through Totridge, retracing his journey.
"I've got my second car parked at Hobard Street in Shepford," Suskin returned. "And I've booked myself a room at the Grand."
"Nothing but the best?"
"What do you expect on a nine-grand job?"
"I thought you said fifteen?"
"He's not going to send the other six grand to the corpse of a bloke that failed, Johnny," scoffed Suskin.
Suskin crouched behind the driving mirror, combed his mid-brown hair back, and gave it a touch of hair spray to keep it in place. Royle watched him with interest. Suskin normally wore a fringe to within a quarter of an inch of his eyebrows. He looked completely different with a vast expanse of naked forehead. An electric shaver buzzed into life, then started to chew at hair. Suskin's sideburns retreated to about half-way down his ears.
The road recrossed the canal a mile and a half from the centre of Totridge, on the diffuse perimeter of Shepford. Suskin opened his window and heaved a cheap cloth tote bag into space. It just cleared the stone parapet of the bridge.
"My shoes and a pair of lightly bloodstained jeans," he remarked. "Weighed down with the gun. I'll get rid of the rest where they won't be found."
"You expect those to be found?" Royle said with a frown.
"Canals and rivers are usual places for dumping things. Especially off bridges. Some police diver's going to take a look sooner or later."
"Why not let them find all your clothes?"
"A small matter of no bullet holes in the upper garments."
"Couldn't you have used the sandbag as a sort of tailor's dummy to put a hole in the right place?"
"You get body tissue as well as blood carried out at the exit wound with a big bullet."
"You're prepared to lose a bit of blood, but you want your skin in one piece?" Royle realized.
"That's about the size of it," nodded Suskin. "Keep it simple. The police have got my car, shot up and crashed. And an eye-witness account of the driver getting blown away; as told by a bloke with blood on his bonnet and a bullet hole in his windscreen."
"As long as the rain doesn't wash all the blood off."
"It won't wash the bullet hole off, Johnny. And there's a gun for them to find. Shoes with scraped heels where you dragged me. That's more than enough to start a murder investigation."

23. Patterns

Detective Inspector Peter Rostov was the grandson of Russian refugees who had fled their homeland during Stalin's reign of terror. Inevitably, he was called 'KGB' by his subordinates; and many of his superiors. He was solidly built and had heavy, Slavic features and apparently infinite reserves of patience. Rostov was a methodical man who rarely took short cuts. He was willing to concede that intuition could play a part in police work; but it was evidence that counted if a case was to be brought before a jury.
Detective Sergeant Joe Erskine was thirty years old, eight years younger than his superior, and he managed to look positively juvenile when he was wearing his hard-done-by expression. He tapped the green and white computer print-outs back into their folder and pushed to his feet. His expression was one of resignation; as though he had not expected to receive a fair hearing.
"Computers are excellent for finding patterns," concluded the DI. "But you can push them too far. Haven't you ever seen that famous optical illusion? The set of random black splodges which the brain interprets as a Dalmatian if you turn it the right way up? The human brain is always looking for patterns because that's the way it thinks."
Erskine put on a that's what I've been saying expression.
"Or rather, doesn't think" Rostov added. "Didn't you watch Edward de Bono's Thinking Course on the box? When it's found a pattern it likes, the brain stops thinking because it knows how to handle that particular pattern. And that's all your computer's doing. Finding you patterns to stop you thinking about important things."
Like whether you're going to get any dinner tonight, thought DS Erskine, conscious of an empty feeling at the end of a very long day. At the same time, he could appreciate some of the DI's points. Some cases had to go on the books as accidents because, short of a time machine, there was no way of proving that crime was involved. The evidence just was not there to be found; and no one handed out medals for looking for things that were not there.
"He must have been a professional hit-man, this guy Suskin," Erskine offered, underlining the prediction from his pattern. His apologetic tone made his last shot a damp squib. "Why else would those two characters from Special Branch have been sniffing around?"
"We don't even know for sure he's dead," countered the DI.
"We found his trousers and his shoes, with drag marks on the backs of the heels, with a gun of the right calibre in the cut," Erskine protested. "He wouldn't be running around without any shoes or trousers if he was still alive."
"It's probable this Suskin is dead," admitted the Inspector. "We don't have a body, but we do have a witness who saw him shot; and got shot at himself while Suskin was bleeding all over his bonnet. But we have no evidence Mulligan didn't blow himself up trying out a new sort of bomb. Possibly demonstrating it to the accomplice who drove him out to the river. Your computer can't prove he was killed by the same bloke that accounted for Suskin. And Henshall, and Markham, and Lawson, and all the rest."
"Broken glasses, evidence of a struggle in Mulligan's shed," Erskine quoted from Detective Sergeant Orwell's report.
"Similar disturbance could also have been caused by Mulligan tripping over his own two feet and trying to stop himself falling," Rostov said after yawning mightily. "Bring me evidence and witnesses, and I'll take your patterns more seriously. Now go home and get some sleep, Joe."
Detective Sergeant Erskine took his folder to the office next door, raised it to head height, and slapped it down onto his desk. A couple of papers flapped away, making a bid for freedom. DS Orwell grinned at him through a long stretch of tired limbs.
"Don't tell me," he chuckled. "KGB didn't go for your games of Murder. Even though you predicted a professional assassin would get the chop within a week."
"He prefers to think Mulligan was an own goal. He doesn't like to admit there's someone running around who can stuff dynamite down a bomber's trousers and blow him to about five dozen bits. Passing down the word from the Chief and the Super."
"According to your theory, it's the same bloke that shot Suskin, so we're looking for him anyway. And when we catch up with him, he'll probably cough the lot. And tell us Mulligan was justifiable homicide."
"Ah! You think Mr X. knew the girl that got blown up," Erskine said with a grin, pleased that his propaganda campaign was starting to work.
"It's possible," Orwell said cautiously. "Pity no one's reported the girl missing and none of the dentists have come up with a match to her teeth. Pity we can't find out who owned the car so we can nip round to his place to ask him who he's upset recently."
"I've still got some possibles from the DHSS to check up on. I think there's a bloody good chance a girl between sixteen and nineteen is signing on."
"What does that say for our times?" wondered Orwell. "And what if she was just drifting through?"
"That's what detective work's all about," Erskine said with a superior smile. "Answering questions like that."
"And mixing every death in a given area into one gigantic conspiracy?" scoffed Orwell.

24. Contact

Someone rang Royle's doorbell at ten-thirty the following morning. He was dipping into the sports pages of his newspaper and giving his despatcher a chance to ring him if the rush job went through. He was home again, and the old arrangement had been restored. Royle headed downstairs to the front door. The caller was wearing a suit and he had the eyes and manner of a copper. He confirmed Royle's suspicion by producing a warrant card.
"Detective Sergeant Erskine," he announced. "I'm looking for Elizabeth Hollister."
Royle began an automatic denial, expecting to be asked about his movements the previous morning. Then the surname registered. "You mean Betty? She's moved on again."
"She doesn't live here?"
"No, she's from South London. Watford, I think."
"Could you describe her?" The detective wrote 'Watford' in his notebook. "Watford? That's North London," he added with a frown.
"Shows how often I go to Watford," Royle said with a shrug. "What's she look like? About so tall." He held his hand level with his nose. Erskine decided on five feet four inches. "Brown hair, darkish, down to her shoulders. Built like a junior shot-putter. Looks about fifteen, but she reckons she's seventeen and a half."
"And when did she leave?"
"Beginning of the week. No, it was the beginning of last week," Royle realized. The amount of unusual activity in the past fortnight had compressed his time sense. "Tuesday morning before last."
Erskine performed a rapid subtraction. "That would be the twenty-third of October?"
"I'll take your word for it," Royle shrugged again. "What's up? Have her parents reported her missing at last?"
"And why would they do that?" Erskine answered one question with another to conceal ignorance.
"That's why she shot off in the first place; because her mother knocked her about once too often."
"Naturally, the parents are concerned," improvised Erskine.
"You could try her brother Jimmy. I think she said he's a taxi-driver in Bristol. But you'll have a hell of a job getting her to go home."
"So she left here on the twenty-third. How would she be travelling, train or coach?"
"She touched me for the train fare, but I think she was going to hitch it."
"Not recommended for young girls."
"She's the sort that can look after themselves." The sound of a telephone filtered down from Royle's flat. "That's for me. I'm on call."
"I think that about does it," decided Erskine. "Thanks."
Royle closed the door as the detective turned away. Back in his flat, he found himself talking to a slightly familiar female voice. Sandy had just received the bad news about Lenny Suskin. Royle found himself in the mind-stretching position of discussing a living man in the past tense when he had just been talking about a dead girl in the present. He suggested that Suskin had had a violent disagreement with his client, or some enemy that neither of them knew. Sandy seemed to favour the latter conclusion.
When Sandy rang off, Royle told himself to go out and buy a new pair of driving gloves before the copper found out that he had been talking to the number one suspect in the Suskin case.
Detective Sergeant Erskine crossed another possible off his shortening list and slid into his car. The horse that he was flogging was looking deader and deader. Only a desire to prove to KGB Rostov that sensible use of computers was the modern way of sorting data kept him lashing away. The Hollister girl had looked very promising. But if she had been hitching a lift to Bristol on the Tuesday morning before last, then she could not have been blown up on the Monday.

25. Practice

Royle's weekend began with a telephone call from someone named Bob. Robert Parker shared Lenny Suskin's Yorkshire accent. He had fixed himself up with a flat in Hetton, on the outskirts of Shepford. He suggested getting together the following week; which was an invitation to meet him at a pub in Shepford at lunchtime on Sunday. Playing spies seemed to be contagious.

Parker had had his hair cut fairly short. His ears were visible for the first time in four or five years. November's first Sunday was a cold, wet day with gusting, gale force winds. But during a lull between downpours, Royle and Parker headed out into the country in Royle's car. Another belt of rain lashed the vehicle and added to the pond at a low-lying corner. A half-remembered public information film flirted through Royle's mind; the one about applying the brakes gently to dry them out after passing through a water splash.
Parker pointed out a left turn about a mile short of the River Dane. Royle drove on for about five minutes, then stopped on Parker's instructions. Soggy grass on rocky mounds and bare-branched trees and bushes surrounded them on all sides. They sat and smoked for a while, watching the rain whipping against the windscreen as if driven by one of the malevolent psychic forces popular in contemporary horror films. Then a lull overtook them.
Parker had several one-foot squares of hardboard and a hammer and nails in his attaché case. He nailed one of the white squares to a roadside tree, which had become a natural post in a wire fence. Then he produced two pairs of surgical gloves and advised his companion to get his anorak cleaned in the morning.
Royle's first two shots with the .45 calibre revolver missed the target completely. Parker fixed him with a superior smirk and suggested that he try again from seven or eight feet instead of twenty yards. Royle managed to put the remaining three shots into the tree; two of them actually through the target. A two-handed grip on the weapon felt very awkward, but it helped to cope with the wrist-breaking kick.
His instructor took charge of the gun and gave him a practical demonstration to back up his words of theory. In Parker's experience, it was better to let a novice have a go first to get the initial eagerness out of his system before attempting to offer any serious advice. Royle faced the target more confidently when it was his turn again. He managed a couple of shots from fifteen yards before the rain drove them back to the car again. Parker took the opportunity to show his friend how to strip and service the .32 automatic.
Royle found the smaller weapon much easier to handle and managed a fairly acceptable group with his last four shots at a new target. Parker spotted a car approaching as Royle was fitting a new magazine. They raised the bonnet of Royle's car and assumed baffled expressions. A tarted-up banger with fat rear wheels, its tail stuck up in the air and crewed by young tearaways, raced past them, trailing jeers. Royle waved a routine V-sign after them, confident that the unsamaritans had not spotted the target nailed to the tree.
The wind started to pick up. Royle fired off the magazine and decided to call it a day. He stood no chance of becoming an expert marksman in one rainy afternoon. But at least he had fired his remaining weapons and gained some basic information on how the guns worked and how to look after them. He had no idea who Mr. X would send against him after Lenny Suskin, but he felt glad that his 'dead' friend would be watching his back while 'Bob Parker' waited for his moustache to grow.
Royle was starting to feel a little out of his depth. There was a certain temptation to pack up and disappear; which would involve giving up his undemanding and highly paid job. Royle had no delusions of invulnerability. But at the same time, he found it irritating to have someone messing about with his life, especially someone who was using his despatcher to keep track of him. Someone deserved a kicking.

26. Probe

The postman rang Royle's bell just before eleven o'clock on Monday morning. He had brought a brown paper-wrapped package, which was too big to pass through the letter-box. One glance at the distinctive, angular capitals of the address told Royle whom it was from.
Seething noises from the kitchen registered as he reached the top of the stairs. The kettle was boiling. Royle tossed the package at one of the chairs in passing. He warmed the pot, spooned in tea, and added boiling water. He was just glancing at his watch to time the brew when he spotted two suspicious characters lurking in the lane behind the row of houses.
Royle leaned closer to the net curtains on the window over the sink. The two lurkers were youngish, casually dressed in a black leather jacket and a suede car coat, and they carried themselves with the confidence of men who had seen a fair share of the rough end of life. They were tugging at the door of Royle's garage.
Royle dashed into the living-room to collect his anorak. Keeping his hand in the right side pocket, gripping the .32 automatic through its plastic bag, he slipped out onto his air raid shelter patio and looked down at the two men. One of them felt eyes burning into the back of his head and turned.
"What's your game, then?" Royle challenged, wondering whether he should have opened the package; and whether it contained two photographs.
"And who might you be, squire?" asked the man in the leather jacket. He was in his middle twenties, stocky, and had a square face. He had to be a copper.
"I'm the bloke who's about to phone the police," returned Royle. "To get you busted for loitering with intent to break into my garage."
"I think we can save you the cost of a phone call." The other man dipped into the inside pocket of his suede coat and unfolded a warrant card. "Detective Sergeant Erskine. This is DC Mitchell. You'll be Mr. Royle?"
"And you were here on Friday," said Royle. "Without your under-strapper. How's the kid doing? Betty?"
"We're here on another inquiry," Erskine said ominously, mounting the steps to Royle's patio. "I understand you used to know one Leonard James Suskin when you lived in Leeds?"
"Yeah," said Royle noncommittally.
"I assume you know he was shot last Thursday?"
"It was on the TV news." Royle's reply was a statement of fact, not an admission.
"And as you were involved in his divorce, and you weren't exactly pals, you'll understand why we're asking you where you were on Thursday morning. Perhaps we'll be more comfortable inside?" Erskine suggested.
"I doubt it," countered Royle. "If we go inside, you'll start poking around, and I'll ask you if you've got a warrant. You'll tell me you haven't got one but you can get one. And I'll tell you to go ahead. If we don't go in, we'll save all that messing about."
"Sounds like you're used to visits from the police, having such a smart answer ready," observed DC Mitchell observed waspishly.
Royle shrugged. "You see it all the time on the telly. Cops exceeding their authority."
"Thursday morning?" Erskine said patiently, realizing that he was not going to get much change out of Royle.
"I was in Shepford."
"All morning?"
"Until about half-four that afternoon. Then I came back here."
"What time did you leave here in the morning?" asked DC Mitchell.
"I didn't. I was staying in Shepford," returned Royle.
"Why?" Erskine asked with a frown.
"Business. It was more convenient to stay in town."
"What business?" asked Mitchell.
"My business," retorted Royle.
"Which hotel?" interrupted Erskine.
"The Oxford."
"When did you leave the hotel?"
"Ten, half-past, something like that."
"Late sleeper?"
"Sometimes."
"Then what?"
"Shopping, the market and the precinct. And just sort of looking around. I had a pint for lunch, at that pub opposite the church behind the market. The one on Under Grove Street."
"The Royal Oak?" said DC Mitchell.
"Yeah, that's it."
"Any witnesses?"
"If you mean, did I meet anyone I know; I didn't."
"You're not thinking of leaving the area?" asked Mitchell.
"Funny you should say that," returned Royle. "I was just thinking I'd better. Having coppers round every five minutes might start the neighbours talking."
"I don't think that would be wise," suggested Mitchell.
"Don't they teach your lot to recognize obvious sarcasm at the Police Academy?" Royle asked DS Erskine.
"If they do, it's before they remove our brains and our sense of humour," Erskine replied, poker-faced.
"Is that it?" asked Royle, remembering his tea.
"For the moment," nodded Erskine. "You wouldn't have any objections to appearing in an identification parade?"
"As long as it's in the afternoon," said Royle. He was not prepared to get up early for a waste of time.
"This Suskin," added Erskine, "he was a pretty dangerous character by all accounts. It could have been self-defence. Think about that in the meantime."
I done it and it were self-defence, Royle thought in Lenny Suskin's Yorkshire accent. Like hell!
"I didn't kill Lenny," Royle said confidently, looking the detective straight in the eyes and telling the exact truth. "And to save you another trip back here, I was using my business name at the Oxford Hotel. David Bedford."
"Ah!" said Erskine significantly, adding to his notes.
"Which isn't a crime, even if you'd like it to be."
"I suppose you got that from the telly too?" remarked Mitchell. He had taken an instant dislike to Royle.
"I think I read it in The Guardian," Royle told him with a smile.
The detectives turned and descended the steps to the lane. They paused for a conference at their cars, which were parked on Mulberry Street.
"He's a cheeky sod," remarked Mitchell.
"Someone once told me if a bloke looks you right in the eyes and says he's innocent, he's probably as guilty as hell," mused Erskine.
"He's a good bet for it. Strolls off with his mate's wife, and then his mate turns up dead on his doorstep after coming here to sort him out," added Mitchell.
"The divorce was a couple of years ago. Why would Suskin wait so long?"
"Perhaps he bears long grudges. Or he was trying to reduce the connection. He'd be the number one suspect if friend Royle turned up dead."
"I can't figure this bloke out," Erskine admitted. "He must have known we'd be back after I called on Friday. He's had a whole weekend to sort out an alibi. All he's got is a bit of a joke; just the sort of nothing you'd expect from a bloke who didn't know he'd need an alibi. And he's not the least bit bothered by us tapping him up."
"Maybe he's got some bird up his sleeve," suggested Mitchell. "Going to spring her on us if we don't leave him alone."
"Maybe he's waiting to see if he needs the bird to back him up," said Erskine. "Maybe she's a bit doubtful."
"Which is why you want me to hang on here to see what he does next," Mitchell said with a nod of understanding.

The tea looked a little strong when Royle had strained it into a mug, but it tasted all right with milk and sugar. He took the mug over to the telephone and extracted Robert Parker's number from his memory. As the double burps sounded in his ear, he reminded himself not to call his friend 'Lenny', building a habit.
"Aaah, yeah?" said a voice. Parker alias Suskin had picked up his method of answering the phone from a film; one starring either Paul Newman or Donald Sutherland, he could not recall which.
"Read any good books lately?" asked Royle.
"I suppose it's not too late to start," returned Parker.
"I've had a visit." Royle paused significantly after the word. "I've got some things I want you to look after."
"See you in about twenty minutes, then?"
"Right," confirmed Royle.
The package caught his eye as he retrieved a duffel bag from the storage unit. He ripped away the paper and opened the cardboard box. It contained four thousand pounds in tens and a note telling him to insert in the weekly Shepford Courier the message: 'M, back in circulation again, R' if he was interested in making fifty thousand pounds.
Royle tucked the note into his wallet and took the duffel bag to his bedroom 'safe' beneath the floorboards. He retrieved a carrier-bag containing the spare ammunition for his pistol and part of his spare cash. After removing about two hundred pounds for living expenses, he added his latest windfall and the .32 calibre pistol, and loaded the carrier-bag into his duffel bag.
He glanced both ways as he crossed his patio to the steps, and looked up and down the lane as he emerged through the gate from the back yard. No one seemed to be watching him. He failed to engage the catch, allowing the garage door to drop behind him. Unobserved, he slipped his emergency reserve of one thousand pounds from the roof.
The plastic bag containing Olly Markham's remaining revolver in its box and the cash-box of ammunition crowded into his duffel bag. If the police insisted on searching his flat, he did not want to have to explain two guns and around six thousand pounds in cash.
A red car crawled reluctantly up to him while Royle was waiting at a set of traffic lights on the outskirts of Fenton. Although the other driver managed to let various other vehicles overtake him, Royle kept track of the red car as he passed through Ashley. He lost track of it in Tarring as he moved twenty yards down the road from a hold-up caused by a lollipop lady to the red light of a pelican crossing.
Royle overtook a red car just past the post office in Hetton, not realizing that DC Mitchell had chased through side-streets to get in front of him while Royle had been stopping and going in Tarring, and he had led Royle to the next town.
The fringes of Shepford, warehouses and factories of various sizes, swallowed the procession. Royle tried some gentle evasive manoeuvres; not attempting to shake a tail, just checking for one. The red car followed him along a couple of side-streets and stopped a discreet distance behind him when Royle parked in front of a newsagent to buy an unnecessary packet of cigarettes.
Royle left his car on the third deck of the Hobard Street car-park. DC Mitchell shadowed him on the other side of the road, having exchanged his leather jacket for a dark green anorak. Royle had to fight against an urge to stare at him during the hundred-yard stroll to Hope Street.
Royle entered the bookshop and approached Bob Parker whistling a tune which his friend knew that he hated. Taking the hint, Parker ignored him. Royle bought half a dozen second-hand paperbacks, exchanged routine remarks about the weather with the owner of the bookshop, and dropped a remark about having a look at the market.
He had to recross one of the main roads through the town. The most direct route to the market involved venturing down a narrow alley to a concealed staircase, which climbed twenty-five feet in two legs and an about turn.
Royle bought half a dozen satsumas, then gave his attention to the apples. The stallholder mentioned his Red Delicious. Two out of the eight of the last batch had been brown and furry beneath their seductive, shiny skins, and the Russells were fairly wooden. Rejecting green and tasteless French Golden Delicious, Royle opted for a couple of pounds of British Coxes. A young man in a dark green anorak watched him out of the corner of an eye as Royle made his purchases, and the ghost of Lenny Suskin kept an eye on both of them.
Royle strolled back to the steps, but turned right towards the side-streets behind the shopping precinct when he reached the bottom. The main road and his car lay to the left. He was hoping to whisper a destination to Parker, and then lose his shadow in a fairly healthy crowd of Monday afternoon shoppers. But moments after leaving the steps, Parker caught up with him.
"Who was that following you, Johnny?" he chuckled.
"Copper," returned Royle. "You mean he isn't now?"
"Poor sod got himself mugged." Parker displayed a wallet. He took out the money and threw the well-worn brown leather wallet into a convenient dustbin. "What's to do'"
"I had that copper and his boss round my place asking where I was when you got topped. The one that was round on Friday, asking about the kid."
"So they caught up with you after all," laughed Parker. "What a big surprise that must have been."
"It's all right for you, bloody laughing," returned Royle. "You're dead and out of it. They must have got my name from that Melville woman at the DHSS. Anyway, I want you to look after this." He worked the carrier-bag out of his large-capacity duffel bag past apples and satsumas. "The shooting-irons and my spare cash. I don't want to have to explain them."
"You should have given them to me yesterday."
"I didn't want to give up my protection on the off chance the fuzz would come round."
Parker shrugged. "Oh, well. Is there enough spare cash to skip on?"
"I've counted it," grinned Royle. "And this came with four grand this morning."
"The balance of my blown-off job," remarked Parker, studying the note. "He's stiffed you for two grand. You still playing?"
"I reckon I know too much," decided Royle. "I don't think I've got a choice."
"And I wouldn't stand for losing a half share in fifty grand," added Parker.
"Those coppers said you're a dangerous character," chuckled Royle. "They told me to think about pleading self-defence."
"When they've got a witness saw someone shoot me in the back in cold blood?" scoffed Parker. "That's premeditation any way you look at it."
"They didn't mention the witness. And there's no harm in trying it on." Royle shrugged. "One of them, not the one you slugged, he seems quite bright."
"You've got to watch out for the bright ones, they're dangerous," warned Parker. "Don't talk yourself into any corners. And you'll get the blame for slugging his mate. He was following you."
"I wish you hadn't told me that now. I might have trouble keeping my face straight."
"You'd best get off to the paper's office to tell your fifty-grand pal you're in circulation," decided Parker. "Keep in touch."
Swinging the carrier-bag by its substantial plastic handle as if it contained harmless groceries, Parker peeled away and merged with the crowds. Royle crossed the precinct to Marks & Spencer, and descended to the food hall to fill the void in his duffel bag.
He called in at the offices of the Shepford Courier on his way back to the car-park, where he was assured that his message would be in the personal column when the newspaper came out on Wednesday morning. The red car picked him up again as he emerged from the car-park and headed back to Fenton.
Detective Constable Mitchell had a slight swelling behind his right ear. It was painful only if he explored it with his fingers. Probably by accident, the mugger had hit him just hard enough to knock him out for a couple of minutes. He had even found his wallet in a nearby dustbin. The money had gone, about twenty pounds, but not his credit cards; which suggested an opportunist after pocket money, not someone more organized who could use, or had the contacts to dispose of, credit cards.
Having to report the incident had made Mitchell feel a proper wally, but it had been beyond his control, and he felt a need to cover himself in case Royle had abandoned his car and disappeared. His colleagues would do a lot of laughing at him, but he had escaped remarkably lightly. Mitchell had seen his fair share of men and women who had been badly injured by thieves who had used almost hysterical force without provocation.

A reception committee was waiting for Royle in Fenton. Detective Sergeant Erskine had been ambushed by Detective Inspector Rostov and informed loudly that he should have hauled the prime suspect back to the station to make a written statement instead of taking his usual short cuts. If it was not down on paper, Royle could tell him any old silly story, then change his mind and claim that any discrepancies were a result of simple misunderstandings.
Erskine was feeling angry; at KGB Rostov for making him look a wally in front of DS Orwell, at himself for letting himself be caught cutting corners, and at DC Mitchell for allowing himself to be mugged and losing track of Royle long enough for him to have arranged an alibi. But he kept his anger behind a blank mask as he slid out of his car. Royle had stopped in front of his garage.
"Got a warrant yet?" asked Royle. The red car had followed him down the lane to box him in.
"We'd like the clothes you were wearing last Thursday and your car," Erskine returned shortly.
"And I'm quite within my rights to tell you to go fish," Royle said calmly.
"And we want you down the station to make a statement," added Erskine as though Royle had kept his mouth shut.
"Are you arresting me?" asked Royle. "If so, I want to see the warrant."
"No," admitted Erskine.
"In that case, I don't have to go anywhere," remarked Royle, weathering the storm well.
"That could be construed as obstructing a police officer in the execution of his duty," growled DC Mitchell behind him.
"Not in this country," replied Royle, lighting a cigarette and blowing smoke at the grey sky. "You've been watching too many American cop shows."
"Read that in The Guardian, did you?" sneered Mitchell, who did not seem to be feeling his bonk on the head.
"No, I think it was in the TV Times," Royle said with a smile.
"Life could become very awkward if you don't co-operate," suggested Erskine. He was starting to remind Royle of a teacher who had always been full of veiled threats.
Royle strolled over to lean on his garage door, taking up a position which allowed him to see both police officers. "I hope you realize all these threats of police harassment are going down on my pocket tape recorder," he announced.
"No decent person refuses to help the police," Erskine added with a note of patience.
"I suppose that makes me indecent," said Royle, trying to look offended. "How long do you want the car for?"
"You can have it back tomorrow afternoon," said Erskine, feeling relieved. He had not been looking forward to having to kidnap the car on a doubtful legal pretext, relying on suspicion instead of solid evidence.
"The trouble is, once you've got it, it might become very difficult to winkle it out of your clutches," mused Royle.
"Life is full of ups and downs," observed DC Mitchell. "Especially for awkward sods."
"I suppose you want to search my place for the gun as well?" added Royle.
"With your permission, we'd like to have a look around," nodded Erskine. "And take away certain items of clothing for forensic examination."
"Don't you know? Every hit-man with any sense slings the gun when the job's done," Royle pointed out, collecting his duffel bag from the car.
"Did that come from the TV Times too?" Mitchell asked, holding out a hand for the duffel bag.
Royle decided to allow him to carry it into the flat. "No," he replied, "that's from watching gangster films. The Mafia and like that. If I behave like a good citizen, are you going to get off my back?"
"We don't make deals like that," said Erskine. "But if you're a good citizen, perhaps you'll tell me why your car isn't registered in your name?" He consulted his notebook. "According to our information, it belongs to one David Purchase of Tunbridge Wells."
"And what does he have to say about it?" invited Royle.
"We haven't been able to contact him yet," admitted Erskine.
"He could be the bloke who sold it to the chain of garages I bought it from." Royle shrugged. "I don't know him."
"Could be a cock-up at Swansea, I suppose," said Erskine.
"We'll check on it," added Mitchell ominously.
"I'll bet," chuckled Royle. He locked his car and tossed the keys to DS Erskine. "I want receipts for everything. Not that it'll do you any good. Like I told you this morning, I didn't kill Lenny Suskin. And the only way you'll prove I did is to plant evidence on me. But you wouldn't dream of doing that, would you?"
"Us, sir? Perish the thought," said Erskine. "Your car looks pretty clean."
"I put it through the car wash when I filled up yesterday," Royle said with a smile.
"I suppose you hoovered the inside as well?" commented Mitchell.
"No, I did that the other week," said Royle. "It doesn't need it yet. Anyway, you can't hoover off bloodstains, and that's what you're interested in."
"How do you know what we're interested in'" scoffed Mitchell.
"I used to watch Z Cars and Softly Cars on the telly," said Royle. "And I have this vivid imagination. Are we going in? It looks like the rain's on again."
DC Mitchell unloaded the duffel bag onto the dining table, and seemed disappointed that it contained only food, fruit, and books. Royle ate an apple and watched the detectives prowling around his flat. Then he made himself a cup of tea. Mitchell exuded triumph when he found Royle's 'safe' under the bedroom floor; and almost comical disappointment when it proved to be empty.
Erskine took charge of two pairs of jeans from the laundry heap and two pairs of shoes; Royle could not remember which he had been wearing the previous Thursday; and the ticket for the anorak, which he had handed in at the dry-cleaner's after buying his newspaper that morning.
As a reward for not making too much of a mess, Royle allowed the detectives to sample his duty-free whisky before they inspected his garage. Mitchell, the ferret, found the hole at the back, in which Royle had kept the revolvers, and a couple of pouches in the roof; all depressingly empty.
Playing the good and co-operative citizen, Royle drove his car into Shepford, forming the meat in a police car sandwich. He spent half an hour in an interview room, being grilled by a detective sergeant called Orwell, who looked as though he had had a couple of sleepless nights on top of a hard life. Royle's remarks about Big Brother and 1984 were not appreciated. Then DC Mitchell brought him a mug of tea and left him to stew with just a taciturn uniformed constable for company.
Royle had taken the precaution of bringing a book, and he had more than enough cigarettes to last out a long siege, thanks to his stop on the outskirts of Shepford to check for pursuit. A team of two had a go at him after his break.
His interrogators failed to identify themselves. They were aged thirty-five to forty, their hair was going grey at different rates, they were smartly dressed, and they exuded an awareness of their own power. Royle refused to be impressed by their 'good cop, bad cop' routine. He had seen much better on television. They questioned him about his association with Leonard James Suskin. Royle gave accurate answers up to about the time of Suskin's divorce, then he maintained that he had not seen Suskin since.
He gained the impression that his interrogators wanted confirmation that Suskin was dead, and that they would pin a medal on him if he admitted the crime. But Royle concluded that a medal would not be much use to a man serving life for murder, or even a shorter stretch for manslaughter. More hints about self-defence failed to move him. Eventually, the Special Branch team lost interest.
A huge uniformed sergeant led Royle along several corridors and into a yard. His escort's air of solemnity, and the way that he kept hold of Royle's arm to stop him making a break for it, made Royle scan the group in the yard for rifles. It was almost as if he were being delivered to a firing-squad. Royle soon spotted the coppers in the line for the identification parade; they were the ones who were not squinting at him.
Royle took the shortest route and tagged on at the right-hand end of the line while he was being told that he could stand anywhere he chose. He knew the drill, he had seen it on television often enough. A rather subdued, middle-aged man was escorted into the yard. Royle thought he was first in line, but the man started at the other end.
Royle got the impression that the other civilians were trying so hard not to look at him now that they were telling the witness telepathically that 'him on the end done it!'
The witness reached Royle. They looked at each other. Not a flicker of recognition passed between them. The witness turned away, apologizing, and telling a uniformed chief inspector that he really had not had time to get much of a look at the killer.
Royle assumed that he had met the man who needed a new windscreen. He had been too busy aiming to miss to look at the driver's face.
Royle was taken back to the interview room by the sergeant. His next visitor was Detective Sergeant Orwell, who had brought his statement, typed out in triplicate. Royle read through the top copy, then Orwell went through it with him, practically line by line, giving him every opportunity to change it or to make additions. But Royle was quite happy with his story. Eventually, he was allowed to autograph all three pieces of paper. A uniformed constable drove him home. Royle felt quite pleased with the way the afternoon had gone.

After watching the two Special Branch men begin their twenty-five-mile drive back to London, Detective Inspector Rostov called a conference in his office. He put on his best blank, patient expression and addressed one word to his subordinates.
Detective Sergeant Erskine returned the empty stare, as if he had tuned out English, expecting Russian. DS Orwell, as senior man, responded to: "Well?"
"If he's not going to admit it, we'll need some very strong evidence from Forensic," Orwell said with a shrug. "I'd say he could have done it. He's got the bottle. And he fits the description from the bloke who saw Suskin shot. Mind you, so does anyone with two arms, two legs, and a head. He could have been there as easily as messing about in Shepford. But Jack McGregor's sure Royle's never seen our witness before, even though the man we want shot at him from no more than six yards. And the only motive we can come up with is self-defence."
"What about Suskin's ex-wife?" Rostov invited.
"She's looking a better bet," offered Erskine. "She's been getting quite stroppy about maintenance. Suskin won't pay her any, and she reckons she can't manage on unemployment benefit. They dragged a couple of characters out of the reservoir at the back of Suskin's place. One of them was a private eye; recently employed by a Mrs. Julie Suskin. Just to talk to him. He got half-way out of the car with his arms taped behind his back before he got stuck. The other bloke was in the boot; shot dead. Which confirms Suskin was a pretty dangerous character."
"If he's dead," commented Rostov. "Has the wife got any insurance on him?"
"A five-grand policy she took out about six months ago," said Orwell, proving that he was as hot on research as Joe Erskine, the computer kid. "She's approached the company, but they don't want to know without a body. Which must have got right up Mrs. S's nose."
"We'll have another look at her," decided Rostov. "Maybe she hired someone else. But let's not forget friend Royle. Pity they'd cleaned that anorak he took in this morning."
"Strange he waited till this morning," commented Erskine.
"You're sure it's the one he was wearing last Thursday?"
"Dark blue with red stripes down the sleeves is what the receptionist at the Oxford Hotel said. His other one, the one he's wearing, hasn't got any stripes."
"Nothing known about him? Royle?"
"CRO and the Collator came up with a big blank."
"What about Mitchell?" said Rostov, flying off at a tangent. "Has he been to hospital?"
"Been and come back," said Orwell. "A bit of a sore head but otherwise undamaged. He was bloody lucky."
"That's something," said Rostov. "So that's your best offer; Royle self-defence or one of Suskin's ex-wife's heavies?"
"I'm sure Special Branch could tell us a lot they won't," said Erskine defensively. "It might have been political."
"That," declared Rostov severely, "is the easy way out. And how many professional killers use pearl-handled cowboy revolvers?"
"General Blood and Guts Patton did," murmured Erskine.
The two sergeants returned to their office, knowing that their Superintendent would be even more unhappy when Rostov reported to him. The Press had been getting at him, asking pointed questions about the lack of progress in the murder inquiry.
"I wish someone would tell Special Branch we're on their side," Erskine remarked, pushing the office door with his foot. "What do you think about this Royle, Brian?"
"I can't get over how calm he is," admitted Orwell. "Any normal person would be getting scared or screaming police harassment by now. If he did it, he's convinced he made a perfect job of covering his tracks. And if he didn't, I'm bloody sure he knows something. And another thing; he can't be the bloke behind your games of Murder. He's only been in the area for eighteen months. Your killings have been going on for three times as long."
"Maybe he's a one-off," Erskine admitted.
Orwell shrugged. "Well, it's all down to Forensic now. Unless a surprise witness comes forward or Royle coughs."
Erskine started to shuffle the paperwork on his desk. Orwell lit a cigarette and blew smoke into space. His father had met two murderers while serving his time with the London Metropolitan Police. Orwell had not knowingly met a killer; murder was still a fairly rare event in Great Britain.
One of the murderers, his father had told him, had been a frightened young man, emotionally still a boy, who had been pushed too far and slipped over the edge in an irrational moment. He had been so worried by the consequences of a reckless action, and overcome with guilt, that he had been placed under twenty-four-hour-a-day observation to prevent him from committing suicide.
In the event, he had been found guilty of the lesser crime of manslaughter. The diminution of responsibility had lightened his burden of guilt dramatically, and he had made every effort to learn two or three trades during his sentence in order to make something of the latter part of his life.
The other murderer had been a mature man of about thirty-five; which was pretty much Brian Orwell's current age. That man had felt threatened and he had removed the source of the threat as casually as someone might swat a fly, and with as little thought for the consequences. He had denied the crime, of course, even in the face of overwhelming evidence of guilt.
Orwell's father had been struck by the man's air of unconcerned, his almost uninvolved calm during the preliminary questioning. He had not been incapable of emotion, however. If provoked, he became angry, and he could enjoy a good laugh at his captors' expense.
A psychiatrist had examined him and pronounced him sane. But he had also suggested that there was something extraordinary about the man's moral sense. To him, good and evil were not opposites, they were bound up with a modifying force akin to expedience. Thus an action which was evil yet expedient could be as natural as a good but inexpedient one was ridiculous.
The man had been sentenced to death and he had not given up his life without a struggle. He had injured four warders during his last days, one very seriously, and he had been hanged tied to a chair because he had refused absolutely to co-operate with his own destruction. Something about Royle had brought back Orwell's father's description of his exceptional killer.
DS Orwell had gained the distinct impression that, in Royle's case, they were dealing with a man who played by his own set of rules, and modified them without notice when expedient. But Orwell knew that there is a lot of distance between suspecting a man of having an abnormal moral sense and proving him guilty of murder

27. Invitation

The envelope was waiting for him in his mailbox when Royle went out for his morning paper. It was thin and expensive, and wore a first-class stamp. Inside was a rectangle of card, on which was printed a map. Beside the thick cross was a picture of a telephone-box, a time, and the words 'Friday Night.' The message came across loud and clear.
After buying his paper, Royle carried on to the phone-box near Fenton's largest pub and brought his friendly ghost up to date. He found a familiar figure on his doorstep, tossing a bunch of keys from hand to hand, when he returned to the flat along Lion Street.
"Took you bleedin' long enough," remarked Royle, opening the front door. "Coming in?"
"Just one or two things to sort out," Detective Sergeant Erskine said with a nod, picking up a plastic bag of clothing.
"On Monday, it was: 'You can have your car back tomorrow, sir.' This is bloody Thursday," continued Royle as he followed the visitor up the stairs.
"They turned over a warehouse full of desirable motors," Erskine explained. "We got shoved to the back of the queue."
"Doesn't a murder suspect take precedence over a few stolen cars?" complained Royle.
"It's all a matter of return on the effort expended," said Erskine cryptically.
"Find any bloodstains?" asked Royle. He tipped the contents of the plastic bag onto a chair and sorted through the heap of clothing. "Everything seems to be here. "
"I haven't actually studied the lab reports," said Erskine, refusing to give anything away. "I don't seem to have a record of your blood group."
"It's O plus. And Lenny's A plus."
"How do you know that?"
"I think it was something we saw on telly. A racing driver with a bracelet on his wrist giving his name and blood group. In case there was enough of him left to give a transfusion to after a shunt. Lenny mentioned he's Group A, like him."
"Right," said Erskine, making a note. "The Vehicle Licensing Bureau at Swansea denies all knowledge of the change of ownership of your car. But the garage and the previous owner confirm your story."
"Story as in fairy-tale?" suggested Royle.
"You're a bit paranoid this morning," countered Erskine.
"Just because you're paranoid, that doesn't mean nobody's out to get you," observed Royle.
"I should write to Swansea and sort your car out. Not that they'll admit they screwed things up. And is there anything you'd care to add to your statement? Surprise witnesses? Things you did last Thursday morning?"
"Not really."
"You haven't been going over and over the events of that morning in your mind?"
"Not really."
"Any ordinary, innocent citizen would be sweating blood, trying to think of something to clear himself," probed Erskine.
"I happen to know I'm not a serious suspect," Royle returned confidently. "That was Special Branch playing 'good cop, bad cop' with me on Monday?"
"What do you know about Special Branch?" demanded Erskine.
"Oh, nothing," Royle said innocently. He helped himself to an apple to quiet a rumbling stomach.
"There's such a thing as scratching backs," Erskine said obliquely. "Which could revise certain opinions. And eliminate certain suspicions."
"They wouldn't talk to you, the cloak-and-dagger mob?" realized Royle, breaking into a grin. "Well, you're probably wondering why I left Leeds in a hurry eighteen months ago. I got a whisper about what Lenny Suskin did for a living. Like making trips to African banana republics. And I don't mean as a tourist."
"You mean he was a mercenary'"
"I couldn't say absolutely for sure, but that's the impression I got," nodded Royle. "And not one of the PBI. He was never away for long. It must have been quick, specialist jobs. Like they train Paras for."
"I thought you'd known him for ages?" Erskine said with a frown. "But you only found out then what he did for a living? After he was invalided out of the Army."
"I thought he did bodyguard jobs. A minder for the rich and not very popular. Not a one-man army. He must have trodden on a lot of toes in that line. Maybe hard enough to make it worth someone's while coming looking for him. I know I didn't want to be handy if he decided to take the divorce out on me."
"That's a very interesting story." Erskine retained his frown. "Why didn't you trot it out a bit quicker?"
"The bloke that shot Lenny's probably been propping up the bar in Reiner's in Düsseldorf since last Thursday night," Royle said with a shrug. "Unless he's got his jungle boots on again. And you didn't want to hear that on Monday. You wanted to find half-washed-away bloodstains all over my clothes and my car. You wanted a fistful of forensic reports proving your prize suspect dunnit. Even though he didn't."
"Simple solutions are always preferable."
"Yeah." Royle put on a mocking smile.
"Just the same," added Erskine. "We might want to talk to you again. You're still a pretty good each-way bet."

The drizzle, which had been the rule for the best part of a month, continued through the following afternoon and into the early part of Friday evening. Royle drove two miles to the south, through Boxbey, and along the Race Hill road as far as the canal. A pub called The Angler and several ancient cottages clustered around the locks. The dark green telephone-box had been added later for the convenience of canal users.
At two minutes to go, Royle hurried from his car to the call-box. The ringing began just a few seconds after the time specified on the map. Even though he was expecting it, the sudden noise made him jump.
"If R is back in circulation, who am I?" asked an unremarkable voice.
"What?" Royle said blankly. Then he remembered the text of the message which he had placed in the local paper. "Ah, you're M. As in James Bond."
"You know Ryder and Weston, the shipyard on the east coast?"
"The place they were picketing until about a couple of months ago? Trying to get it reopened?"
"You have an hour and half to get here."
"It's sixty-odd miles."
"Sixty-two from where you are now. There's a case containing fifty thousand pounds hidden here. The map and the key are in my pocket. All you have to do is take them from me."
"Just like that?"
"If you go straight down the entrance road from the main gate, you'll come to a fabrication shed with a large, white figure four painted on the door. You'll receive further instructions when you get here."
"What if I decide not to play?" suggested Royle.
"You won't get a photograph through the post next time."
"So I might as well get blown away trying for fifty grand?"
"I think you'll find it an entertaining evening," said the mystery voice. "You have till nine thirty-five to get here. You'd better not be late: I don't give second chances."
Royle glanced at his watch automatically as the telephone started to purr into his ear. He used up a little of his time calling Bob Parker's number. To his surprise, a female voice answered.
"Is, er," Royle struggled with the name, "is Bob there?"
"Bobbie? 'E's gorn aht, dear. Dahn the orf-licence."
"Would you tell him Johnny phoned? And give him a message?"
"Awl right, ducks. 'Ang on; there's no bleedin' pen 'ere."
Royle lit a cigarette during an eternity of waiting.
"Right, ducks," the cheerful voice continued. "If I write it dahn, I'm gonna get it straight, arn' I?"
"Good thinking," approved Royle. "The message is: 'Ryder and Weston, half-nine tonight, shed four.'"
"Is that Ryder with a y? Where they was on strike for two years?"
"That's the place," confirmed Royle.
"We're s'post to be goin' aht ternight," objected the woman.
"There could be a fur coat for you in it," hinted Royle.
"Yeah? A riw one or bunny rabbit?"
"One you'll have to keep in the fridge."
"I'll believe that when I see it," chuckled Parker's friend. "What's your name again, dear?"
"Johnny," said Royle.
"Are you bleedin' 'aving me on, Johnny?" The woman was genuinely asking for information.
"I never joke about fur coats," Royle assured her. "Bobbie will tell you that."
He returned to his car and looked at his watch again. Just over three of his ninety minutes had flown. He started the engine and headed for the coast. The interior of his car was almost antiseptically clean. Royle flicked a little ash onto the floor to give it a lived-in look. He was tempted to make a detour back to Parker's flat to collect his arsenal, but he had a long way to go on wet roads and could ill afford a twelve-mile round trip to Hetton.
It would be best, he decided, to make for the shipyard and wait for Parker to catch up with him. The unwelcome and enduring police interest had thrown his plans off slightly, and he had not been expecting such a sudden invitation to the fifty-grand party. But he had nothing else to do, and the sky to the south-east was losing its murky, whitish-grey colour and turning to encouraging star-shot black. He was heading for better weather at the coast.

Royle made a stop for petrol and a snack with eleven miles to go and twenty-five of his ninety minutes left. He filled his tank wondering whether it was worth wasting money on petrol if there was a chance that he might not be around to use it; but the same consideration applied to his money. He ate a hamburger with mustard and onions and drank a plastic cup of coffee at the wheel. A steady wind from the Channel had blown away the clouds. Royle was driving towards Orion with a big, fat, full moon coming up on his left.

28. Shed 4

Fifty yards of access road led down to the closed and bolted gates of the shipyard. Royle parked tidily at the end and locked his car. The night was very cold, and moisture filmed the cracked paint on the massive wooden gates. He tucked a note in a plastic bag under a windscreen wiper to remind Parker to head for Shed 4; if he arrived in time.
Royle's foot found a length of one-inch iron pipe in the grass. He rested it against the perimeter wall and used it as a step up towards the top. He rolled into the shipyard and wiped his gloves on the legs of his jeans. His anorak was a damp mess down the front, but fifty thousand pounds would pay a lot of cleaning bills.
Brick buildings lined the road through the shipyard, looking black and silvery in the slanting full moonlight. The damp sloping roof of a single-storey hut looked as though it had been dusted with fresh snow. Royle raised the hood of his anorak. His ears and temples felt warmer at once. He had six minutes in hand. Finding the shipyard had wasted five precious minutes.
Shed number four lay on the left of the road, facing a building which contained more windows than its neighbours. Royle assumed that it was an office block. Killing time, giving Parker a chance to catch up, he took a turn around the outside of Shed 4. The building was made of rotting brick and had rusting drainpipes. It was forty yards long and twenty wide. The side walls rose twenty-five feet to the asbestos roof. A belt of windows ran from front to back at about first-floor level, compared to the office building.
At the back, he found two massive doors and two sets of decaying tracks, which led down to the lagoon; an oval pond shut off from the tides by a pair of lock gates. Royle concluded that the shed had been used for fabricating and launching small craft; motor torpedo boats during the War, and then cruising vessels of a similar size for rich civilians; chaps who could afford to throw fifty-grand parties.
Keeping to the deep shadows and trying to make as little noise as possible, Royle completed his circumnavigation of the arena. He had devoted a great deal of thought to the occasion to come and he had decided that he was up against someone like the late Olly Markham; only his someone had a lot more money, far superior connections, and was infinitely more subtle.
His someone; he had not the faintest idea of his identity; had set him against a mugger, a bomb mechanic, and a top-flight assassin. Royle had proved himself capable of killing more or less by accident and enhanced his reputation by deception. Both sides could make their own rules.
But he had lost his advantage this time. His opponent knew that he was coming this time. Royle and Mr. X would crawl about in the darkness of Shed 4 for a while, and only one would emerge alive. If Royle survived, he would be fifty thousand pounds richer. If he did not, he would not need the money anyway. He knew the score. He had seen the film and read the book.
Thinking of himself as fifty thousand pounds richer told him that he had already written off help from Lenny Suskin/Robert Parker. The woman on the phone had mentioned plans to go out. And then some character called Johnny had phoned to sabotage her Friday night.
The longer Parker had taken to get back from the off-licence, the more time she would have had to put the inconvenient message out of her mind. If she wrote it down and remembered the note an hour later, Parker would just go out with her as planned. His car could not cover sixty-eight miles in half an hour.
Parker would just phone Royle's flat in the morning. And if he got no reply, he would delete his pal Johnny's address and phone number from his mental address book. He would have lost his share of the fifty grand; but he would have inherited a carrier-bag containing two guns and six thousand pounds in ready cash.
And the only person who knew that Lenny Suskin was still alive and calling himself Robert Parker would be dead.
Royle grinned to himself as he crossed the road to the wicket door in the front of Shed 4. Getting himself killed would serve the interests of two others, but fifty thousand pounds would come in very useful; and save him two years' risk as a cocaine mule. He was going to do his best to be a rotten spoilsport and collect the jackpot.
A black box and a shopping bag stood beside the wicket door. Royle investigated the black box. He lifted the lid confidently, not expecting a booby-trap. His someone had invested too much time and trouble to waste him so easily. There was a field telephone inside the box. Royle lifted the receiver and turned the handle on the side of the box.
"Good-evening," said a deepish male voice; the man who had called him earlier. "Enjoy your stroll round the shed?"
"Yeah," returned Royle. "What happens now?"
"If you haven't already looked in the shopping bag, do so."
Royle pulled back the zip and found a box-like submachine gun, a thick, tapering tube, and a webbing belt with canvas pouches for three spare magazines. "I hunt you and you hunt me," he remarked, having wedged the receiver against his ear with his shoulder. He screwed the wide end of the sound suppressor onto the short length of protruding barrel to double the length of the submachine gun.
"That's it exactly," approved the telephone voice. "Have you ever handled an SMG before?"
"Nearest I've been to one is my telly." Royle found the magazine release and pressed it. "I've seen them use these things on The Professionals. And there was a John Wayne film where he was a cop. He used one of these M-tens." There had also been a centre page spread on the Ingram M-10 in his morning paper several years earlier.
Royle pushed down on the top cartridge. The magazine was full; of something. His suspicious mind suggested a few live rounds on top of blanks. He pushed the magazine back into the handle of the weapon.
"You have five minutes to familiarize yourself with your Ingram," said his opponent. "There's fifty thousand pounds in five-pound notes waiting for you in here. You'll find a diagram showing where to find it in one of my pockets. If you get that close."
"Just who the hell are you?" invited Royle. He unclipped the last of the pouches on the belt and confirmed that it contained a full spare magazine. Then he buckled the belt round his waist.
"I'm your employer, Mr Royle," chuckled Colin Mulgraham. "I'm your Dutch uncle."
"That answers a few questions," commented Royle. Especially the one about knowing his movements through his despatcher.
"Is there anything you want to know about the workings of your SMG? Reloading, or anything?" asked Mulgraham.
"I've sorted that out," replied Royle. "There's not that much to it."
"I shall expect you to have come through the door by nine-forty. I'll start shooting thirty seconds after you're in here. Best of luck, Mr. Royle," Mulgraham added.
"Same to you, Uncle," said Royle, completing another note to Parker, just on the off chance. He slid it under the handle on the lid of the field telephone.
"And a final word of warning: I hope you won't disappoint me by trying to run for it at the last minute."
"See you inside, Uncle," promised Royle.
He dropped the receiver into the black box and replaced the lid. Then he slid his left thumb along the body of the submachine gun to push the selector switch from FULL to SEMI. He extended the wire stock and lowered the shoulder brace. He pulled back the milled actuator knob to load the top cartridge into the breech. His new driving gloves were about to soak up some gun oil and acquire a tattooing of powder, which would tell a forensic scientist that Mrs. Royle's lad had been playing out fantasies with live ammunition, but fifty thousand pounds would buy enough gloves to last a lifetime.
Royle looked around for a target. Lenny Suskin had once commented that it was better for the beginner to treat a submachine gun as a thirty-two-shot small rifle, in the case of the Ingram M-10, instead of a pistol which could squirt large amounts of lead in an approximate direction.
Given the rate of fire of the Ingram on full automatic, four magazines added up to eight seconds of ammunition. As his reserve armoury was sixty-eight miles away, Royle could not plan to shoot off his ration of nine-millimetre, then plug his opponent with the .32 automatic when he closed in to kill the man whose gun he thought was empty. He needed to take a cautious approach to the coming battle.
The full moon was shining towards Royle, along the main road through the shipyard, casting a shadow of the projecting brickwork and the lintel onto the door of the building opposite. He brought the stock of his weapon up to his shoulder and wrapped his left hand around the sound suppressor. He sighted on the junction of vertical and horizontal shadows on the door and eased back the trigger.
The gun said ploo! and spat a cartridge case to the right. The bullet hit the door with a loud smack, more or less where he had aimed it. Royle lowered his aim, following the boundary of the vertical shadow, and fired two more shots, determining the trigger pressure.
Despite Mr. X's final threat, Royle felt that he had arrived at the moment of decision. A choice remained between dashing back to his car and disappearing, and picking up the gauntlet. Either way, he was out of a job. He knew a damaging little about his Dutch uncle; the man behind the cocaine-importing mule train, who had been the instigator of, and an accessory to, three killings; one of them the misdirected slaughter of a runaway called Betty Hollister, aged seventeen and a half.
Fifty thousand pounds made a nice golden handshake. All that remained was to dispel lingering doubts about the purity of his opponent's motives. Holding the gun between his knees, Royle reached behind his head to unzip the hood of his anorak. He buttoned the detached hood into the left side pocket. Cold night air nipped at his exposed face and ears.
If Mr. X wanted the thrill of killing someone, all he had to do was find himself a lonely stretch of road with good visibility in both directions, and sit down with a hunting rifle to wait for the first solitary motorist.
After so much preparation, Royle told himself, Mr. X would not be waiting to spray the doorway the moment a moving target appeared. He wanted a game. He wanted to dodge about on a piece of prepared ground, toying with an armed and dangerous opponent. Mr. X, the biggest-game hunter, was assuming that the odds were heavily in his favour. But he did not know just how tough it was to kill Johnny Royle, even without Lenny Suskin/Parker to back him up. Parker was not coming; which proved that you cannot trust a woman.
Acting before reason could delay him further, Royle turned the handle on the wicker door and leapt into Shed 4, darting to the right as a strong spring pushed the door back towards its frame. His first impressions were of brilliant, silvery light and a reek of oil. A stack of timber reached up to more than head height in front of him. Royle turned onto a central aisle for a few yards, then ducked to the right, taking shelter behind a large, rusting boiler.
Moonlight was pouring through the first-floor-level windows behind him. Colin Mulgraham had arranged for natural flood-lighting. Crates and mounds of anonymous equipment diffused and reflected the silvery beams on both sides of the central aisle. The area was devoid of colour; just black, white, and lustrous shades of grey.
On the wall opposite him, about a third of the way along the shed, a staircase rose to half a dozen offices. Royle was attempting to form as complete a mental picture as possible of the layout of the contents of the shed when a voice called to him from the far end.
"Glad you decided to join the party," said the increasingly familiar voice of a man with an 'educated' accent.
"I couldn't resist your invitation." Royle moved from the shelter of the boiler to the protection of a lathe.
"The truce ends in ten seconds.' added Mulgraham. "Just in case you have last-minute second thoughts, the door you just came through is now locked."
That's your ten seconds, Royle thought, resisting the temptation to make a snappy reply.
The voice seemed to be coming from the region of the left-hand set of doors. Royle moved down towards the far end of the shed, keeping to the wall, where he cast no shadow.
Just before he reached a collection of fifty-gallon oil drums, he realized that his approach was extremely logical and predictable. He stepped to the left, moving towards the central aisle.
Tang! Tang! Tang! One of the drums hopped backwards.
Royle sprinted ten yards to the far side of the central aisle and took shelter behind a crate. He fired one shot at a shadow, which moved across the bottom of the aisle, and was rewarded with another three-round burst, which skipped clean splinters from the layer of greasy grime on the concrete floor.
Circling, sprinting, shooting, hiding, Royle began to despair of ever getting a clean shot at the elusive sprite. On the plus side, however, Mr. X's luck was no better. Bullets had socked into wood, rung from metal, and chipped at concrete. Time had become something which could not be spared to keep track of its passage. Despite many near misses, the combatants had remained undamaged.
The full moonlight was surprisingly bright, but there was so much small junk scattered about the floor that it was almost impossible to move around quietly. Royle had been relieved to discover that his opponent was no surer of foot than himself. At the rate they were going, the loser would be the one who ran out of ammunition first.
Royle had lost count of the number of single shots that he had fired. The total had to be twenty-five plus, and Mr. X was well into his second magazine, assuming that every burst of his was at least three rounds. Royle moved the selector switch back to FULL, having decided to spray off the last few rounds in a hopeful quarter-second burst. Then he took a spare magazine out of one of the pouches and tucked it into his belt.
A shadow moved in the triangular mounds of large-bore pipes. Royle pulled his trigger. The spang of lead on steel merged with the fluting roar of his weapon and the clink of cartridge cases pattering against an empty oil drum. A half scream and sob outlived the metal clamour.
Royle dropped his empty magazine on the move and replaced it with the full one from his belt. He heard a sound, a hesitant dragging, and took aim. Nothing happened when he pulled the trigger.
Through a violent jolt of alarm, he realized that he had forgotten to cock the weapon, and that it was still on full automatic.
Lead chased him into the shelter of a packing-case when he kicked something on the floor; a wild storm from the man who had been shooting in carefully controlled, three-round bursts. Royle circled to the left, sacrificing silence for speed. He turned a corner and ran straight into two oil drums, one on top of the other. He dropped flat as they clanged to the floor, attracting a lashing burst from his opponent.
As he struggled to recover his breath quietly, Royle heard metal slide on metal, and then a sharp click.
In a rush of triumph, he realized that the last two bursts and the magazine change had come from the same general area. Mr. X had let out a yell among the wedges of large pipes. Perhaps he had been hit somewhere disabling. The sucker had proved much more of a handful than Mr. X had expected.
Royle found a short, fat bolt at his feet. He counted to ten, then lobbed it down towards the left-hand set of doors. It thudded onto a crate, drawing a short burst from the area of the pipes. Royle felt sure that he had spotted a firefly muzzle flash. He slipped across the central aisle and took cover behind a massive crate, which was six feet square and two feet thick. He unclipped one of the pouches and slid the top round off a spare magazine.
Attempting to create the impression that he was circling along the end wall, past the doors, he flicked the cartridge into space. Mr. X fired at the noise. Royle rose from his instinctive crouch to continue his approach. Tension had squeezed him during the first few minutes of the duel. Now, excitement exerted the same pressure.
Something slammed him against the rough wood.
Royle blinked tears of pain from his eyes. His right shoulder was stuck inexplicably to the crate. The gun had clattered from his useless hand. He had no feeling in his right arm. His face burned as if it had been sandpapered by the violent contact with the coarse planking of the crate. He felt weak and confused.
"Not a bad effort," remarked a voice behind him.
Royle managed to twist his head round. His opponent was standing in the central aisle, looking intact, holding something polished that threw back the moonlight.
"But you fell into the trap," continued Colin Mulgraham. "A rather elementary piece of deception. You galloped to the sound of the guns and forgot to secure your rear."
In a rush of perception, Royle realized that his opponent was holding a crossbow. A loaded crossbow. Something skated across the floor and bumped into the crate at Royle's feet. It was an attaché case, packed with bundles of notes.
"I just thought you'd like to see the money," added Mulgraham. "Just to prove it was yours for the taking ..."
A shot and a slap spun him out of Royle's restricted field of vision. Two more shots crashed through the silence of the shed. Two more bullets whacked into something absorbent. Royle heard slithering noises through his haze of pain. His shoulder had started to scream.
"A professional pulls the trigger when the target is standing still in his sights," remarked an approaching voice, which had a Yorkshire accent. "He doesn't hang about yapping or admiring the bloody view. How are you doing, Johnny?"
Royle managed a croak.
"He really nailed you, me old love," Parker continued with a laugh. "This is going to hurt like hell."
"It does already," croaked Royle.
Working rapidly because speed would cause the least pain, Parker levered off the end of the crate. Royle screamed when Parker thumped the head of the crossbow bolt with an iron bar to free it from the planking. He left the bolt in position to seal the wound in his friend's shoulder.
Parker tucked Royle's hand into the belt for his spare magazines and immobilized the arm with a length of rope. The quantity of money in the case looked about right, but he did not stop to count it. Royle was going into clinical shock, but he was starting to recover from his surprise.
Supported by Parker, Royle managed to stagger down to the main gate. Parker propped him against the wall, then took something from his anorak pocket. Royle was past assistance and caring. A set of bolts snicked out of their sockets. Royle heard a murmur of voices. A car started and drove away. Then Parker was back.
"I sent your car back to my place," he explained. "With the bird you're going to buy the mink coat for."
Royle leaned forward when Parker had fastened his seat belt. Parker stuffed the attaché case behind him to keep the flights of the crossbow bolt away from the back of the seat. The assassin knew of a private clinic near Faversham, where damaged bodies could be repaired discreetly and payment in cash stifled curiosity. If he did not croak within the next three-quarters of an hour, Royle stood a reasonable chance of enjoying his redundancy money; less medical expenses and a fur coat.

29. Booted

Parker used a code phrase over the telephone at the gate of the health farm. He drove round to the back of the converted country house, like a tradesman making a delivery. He unfastened the magazine belt so that it was left behind when Royle was eased out of the car. The doctor and a male nurse had received a sufficient surprise on finding a crossbow bolt stuck through the patient's shoulder. A man who had been fighting a duel with submachine guns commanded a higher fee than the victim of an unfortunate accident; perhaps while poaching.
When Royle had been transferred to a wheelchair, Parker stuffed five hundred pounds into the side pocket of the doctor's white coat. The surgical ward lay beneath the west wing of the house, in the seclusion of the former air raid shelters. Parker started his engine and completed a tour of the buildings as Royle was being wheeled down the ramp. He had a lot to do, but a long autumn night to do it in.
Parker hurried back to Canterbury and left his car in the car-park of Canterbury West station. Then he 'borrowed' temporary transport from a side-street near a pub. The time was just a quarter to eleven. Given reasonable luck, he would have reached his destination by the time the owner emerged from the pub to find his wheels gone.

Despite all the shooting and screaming, the shipyard was silent when Robert Parker trotted up to the gate. Nobody had invited the police to come and poke their noses in. Parker found a red, executive-bracket Rover parked behind the offices that faced the main gate, and drove it to assembly shed four. The moon had circled appreciably towards the sea and it was shining at an angle through the windows, leaving a much larger wedge in shadow.
A pool of blood had collected under the body. The hollow-nosed hunting bullets had left massive exit wounds. Mr. X was going to make a hell of a mess of the Rover's boot, but that was his problem. Parker tapped his pockets and found a set of keys, a wallet, and a dark blue plastic box. Mr. X had left the driver's door unlocked and the keys in the car, prepared for a fast getaway.
The dead man was called Colin Mulgraham and he had lived at Race Hill; four miles from Royle geographically, but about a million socially. Parker unloaded the weapon that Royle had dropped, then directed his torch into the stacks of pipes. He found another M-10 clamped to a wooden trestle. There was a gadget attached to the trigger.
Just to prove a point, Parker extended the aerial on the blue plastic box, slid a switch to the 'on' position, and touched the button on the top of the box. The submachine gun plopped out a short burst. Radio-control had other uses than operating the servos on model aircraft, cars, and boats. The signal from the box activated a small motor, which drew back an arm to pull the trigger of the weapon. Parker released the clamps, removed the magazine, and cleared the chamber.
He put the weapons and the spare magazines on the floor at the back of the Rover. Then he took hold of the front of Mulgraham's camouflaged jacket and dragged him to the door, leaving a long smear on the concrete floor. The crossbow scraped along beside Mulgraham, locked immovably in a death-grip. After a bit of pushing, Parker managed to stuff the body into the boot of the car.
Some copper was going to find himself tackling a second-rate replay of the death of Lenny Suskin. This time, there would be more than enough blood at the death scene to confirm that someone had been junked; and a body sixty miles away to complete the puzzle if the two police forces made the connection.
Parker bolted the gates and climbed back to Mulgraham's Rover, wondering what had happened to the night-watchman. The shipyard was still full of very nickable loot. Perhaps he had been bribed to get lost for the night, or perhaps he was tied up somewhere. Either way, his absence had simplified matters considerably.
Parker drove out of the town carefully, but at a reasonable speed. He did not want to be stopped by coppers out to fill their quota of Friday night drunks. He put on more speed along deserted country roads and reached Race Hill at ten to one.
The sky was full of stars, and ice had started to coat wet roads. A street sign fixed his position. Parker took the next turning on the right and motored slowly along an avenue of detached houses. One of the double gates offered a number. Two houses further along, he spotted a lower number. He had come too far and he was on the wrong side of the road.
The gates on the drive were standing open. Parker cruised up the strip of tarmac and stopped at the garage. One of the keys found in the dead man's trouser pocket let him into the porch. Another opened the front door into the silent gloom of the house. Parker made a rapid tour of the bedrooms to make sure that no one was sleeping on the first floor.
He drew heavy curtains in a study; which could be identified by the desk and filing cabinet. Parker found a Polaroid camera and a set of long lenses in the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet. The next drawer up contained stationery; writing-paper and a stock of envelopes, some secured with paper bands and others loose under the writing-paper.
Most of the loose envelopes contained photographs; some black and white, some colour, and all unposed. Parker recognized himself, Royle, and a character called 'Nails' Mulligan, who had made a name for himself by sharpening three six-inch nails to needle points and using them as darts. Georges Leraine was a member of his own profession. Parker knew the name but not the face. Another professional, Bobby Fletcher, had vanished off the face of the earth more than a year earlier. Parker assumed that Fletcher and the rest of the bunch had all been roped into a duel with the late Colin Mulgraham; who had cheated.
Parker took Royle's envelope over to the fireplace, along with half a dozen others, picked out at random, just to confuse the issue. He burned them along with several dozen sheets of writing-paper, and ground the ashes to powder. One of the keys looked as though it belonged to a safe. Parker investigated the framed prints of rather elastic horses. One of them was hinged to the wall, like a door.
The safe contained a few thousand pounds in notes, which Parker pocketed. A black cash-box stood on a heap of fairly uninteresting papers. In the cash-box, he found a pair of flat snakes of clear plastic. They were a yard long and filled with Kruger Rands, each coin separated from its neighbours by a neat weld. Parker unzipped his anorak and threaded the snakes through the belt loops of his trousers. Then he relocked the safe and pushed the picture-door back into its retaining clips.
When he dialled his home number, Jane answered promptly, full of questions. Parker cut her short and told her to jump into Johnny's car and pick him up outside the Conservative Club in Race Hill. She arrived just after a quarter past one. There was enough activity in and around the club to make her arrival and departure unremarkable.
Parker dumped on the back seat, a shopping bag containing two submachine guns and parried questions about why they were heading for Canterbury. He admitted that they were going to pick up his car, but he evaded the issue of what it was doing there and how he had got to Race Hill.
Jane mentioned that her idea of a Friday night out did not include charging backwards and forwards across south-eastern England in his pal Johnny's car. Parker told her to grit her teeth and think about the fur coat. Jane remained sceptical, but the complaints stopped.
Towards the end of the return journey, Parker let Jane go on ahead. He turned off the main road. He stopped a couple of houses past Mulgraham's and sorted out the keys. He locked the remaining pearl-handled revolver, the twin of the one used to 'murder' Lenny Suskin, in Mulgraham's safe. The empty space in the wooden box, he knew, would underline the fact that it was one of a pair. The empty cash-box provided a suitable home for some of the ammunition. He left Mulgraham's keys in the top-right drawer of his desk.
Feeling drained, Parker returned to his car. He had been on the go for the best part of six hours. He had driven two hundred and fifty miles, killed a man to save the life of a friend who had broken up his marriage, and made twenty-five thousand pounds plus the contents of Mulgraham's safe. And his night was not over.
Parker still had to drive a further fifty miles to take the Ingrams to a customer; a gun-nut who collected automatic weapons. A slab of Kendal Mint Cake from the supply in the dashboard helped to perk him up a little.

A tent-like note was waiting on the sideboard when Parker reached his flat in Hetton. Jane had gone to bed, which came as no great surprise. Parker consumed a celebratory drink while transferring the proceeds of the night to a cupboard with a lock, then he joined his guest.

Detective Sergeant Brian Orwell made no attempt to hide a massive yawn. He was tired, and he did not care who knew it. A man who had managed just two hours' sleep before being called out was entitled to yawn his head off at breakfast time. Detective Inspector Rostov shot his best KGB look of disapproval across his desk. Orwell ignored it and cracked another huge yawn. DS Joe Erskine was looking smug as they tied up the loose ends of a busy night so that their superiors could concoct a statement for the Press.
A telephone call timed at 03:09 hours had started the chain reaction. The anonymous caller had announced that Lenny Suskin's murderer could be found if someone looked in the boot of the car parked outside sixteen Maple Leaf Drive, Race Hill.
Getting the body out of the car had involved a hell of a struggle, and DS Erskine remained convinced that Brian Orwell had broken some of the stiffs fingers to get the crossbow out of his grasp. The photographs in the loose envelopes in the filing cabinet had provided Erskine's moment of triumph.
Much to DI Rostov's disgust, most of the names of Colin Mulgraham's presumed victims figured in Erskine's patterns of death. It seemed very likely that, at intervals of twelve to eighteen months, Mulgraham had played himself in with a mugger, and worked his way up a ladder of violence to a first-class professional killer.
His motive, unless it had been pure blood-lust or a twisted sense of public duty, still remained obscure.
What did seem fairly clear was that Mulgraham had killed an assassin called Lenny Suskin, and that one of Suskin's friends had avenged him. And, as a bonus, a number of files had been closed at the cost of opening just one more. The accounts of crimes committed and crimes solved remained uneven, but they had been brought a little closer to balance. Even Detective Inspector Rostov was prepared to admit that life is essentially an unequal process.

30. Survival

Royle had a visitor on Sunday evening. His temperature was still just in the hundreds, his right shoulder ached, the world tended to float a bit at the edges, but he knew that he was alive and on the way to recovery in a very private hospital.
Bob Parker hitched a chair closer to the bed and peered critically at his friend. "You're looking a bit bleached," he decided.
"Yeah?" scoffed Royle. "How's things?"
"All tidied up," returned Parker, putting a professional interpretation on the question.
"When did you show up on Friday night? Seventh Cavalry?"
"About five minutes behind you, I suppose. I had to unpack my gear out of sight of Jane. And then I had to climb up to the roof of your shed four. Fortunately, there was a nice hole in it, and I managed to get down into one of the offices. But I'll tell you something, Johnny. I couldn't tell you two apart at first. You both looked like bloody amateurs."
"So how did you in the end?" demanded Royle.
"The crossbow," grinned Parker. "If you'd been fighting with a crossbow, you'd more likely have shot yourself in the foot than him in the back. And I couldn't see him being bloody daft enough to let you shoot him in the back anyway. So I junked the clever one."
"The clever one?" scoffed Royle. "Who's still alive?"
"Good point," conceded Parker. "The papers are full of the death of the mysterious mass murderer of Race Hill. No one seems to know anything much about your Mr. Mulgraham. He was a City whizz-kid. Into all sorts of high-tech ventures. But no one knows where his investment capital came from. Certainly nowhere respectable."
"Coke," said Royle. "He used to import it. I used to work for him. He told me."
"So that's how come he picked on you. Look, they've even got a picture of Lenny Suskin among his victims." Parker displayed a folded newspaper for Royle's inspection. "The doc says they'll be chucking you out in a few days. Any plans?"
"I might stroll over and spend a bit of time with my bird in Amsterdam," decided Royle.
"You always were a bit kinky for Dutch birds. I might come with you for a bit."
"You takin' yours, ducks?" asked Royle, attempting Jane's cheerful accent.
"No, I think I'll just leave her that fur coat you bought her to remember me by," Parker said with a smile. "I don't want her to get too serious, and I don't want her to realize I look a lot like the picture of a dead bloke."
"How much did I spend on this fur coat?" invited Royle.
"Oh, a few hundred," grinned Parker. "I'll give you the bill when you're feeling stronger."
"What about this Jane?" frowned Royle.
"She knows Mulgraham was a killer, and she knows he was after my pal Johnny; but all she knows about him is his name. She thinks Mulgraham got what was coming to him, and she's quite happy with her fur coat."
"I suppose this means the police will stop trying to pin your murder on me," realized Royle.
"Lucky you," grinned Parker. "I hope it's not raining in Amsterdam."
"Tell you what," warned Royle. "You'd better not sod off and marry my bird in three months' time, like you did with bloody Julie."
"I've given up marriage," laughed Parker. "I wonder if I can screw a half share of my life insurance out of Julie. I suppose they'll pay her now."
"She might drop dead of shock," chuckled Royle. "Then you'll cop for the lot."
"That's an interesting legal point," mused Parker. "Can a dead man inherit from his ex-wife?"

At about lunch-time on a wet Monday, Stephen Birch, the despatcher of the Mulgraham cocaine-smuggling operation, received a telephone call. Birch was shocked to learn that he had been working for a mass murderer. He had not known the identity of his employer, but he had assumed that he was youngish and he possessed the nerve to play against the Law for high stakes. Twenty-nine-year-old Mulgraham fitted his mental image, but he had not made the link to the man who had given the Sunday papers such a thrill.
After allowing a few moments for the news to sink in, the caller announced that he was taking over. Business would continue as before as far as Birch was concerned. Only the despatcher's pick-up points for documents and payments would be changed if Birch wanted to carry on. The despatcher was only too pleased to keep his job in the depths of a recession.
Mulgraham's receiver took more convincing. He was suspicious of the man on the telephone, and a little worried about what his employer would do to a defector; if he was still alive. The existing receiver was of value because he knew the mules by sight. But if he proved foolishly loyal to a dead man, he could be dropped. No one was indispensable.
Smuggling networks folded, their personnel retired or arrested. But the business would continue for as long as the private use of cocaine remained both illegal and desirable.