Richard came into the office to say that most of the customers had gone and only one table remained, and they were having their coffee.
“Mrs. Kealy was asking after you,” he said to me.
“Were the Kealys here tonight?” I asked. “It’s not Saturday.”
“Last night and tonight,” he said. “Mrs. Kealy said something about wanting to support the restaurant after the difficult times with the poisoned dinner and all.”
How nice, I thought. I needed more customers like the Kealys.
“Most of the staff can go home now,” I said. “And you, Carl, if you like. I’ll lock up.” I wanted to be the last to leave so as not to be followed. “Richard, can you finish up?” He would ensure that the last table paid their bill, and then he would see them off the premises.
“No problem,” he said, and departed back to the dining room.
“Where are you staying?” Carl asked.
“We’re booked into a hotel,” I said.
“Which one?” he asked.
I wondered just how much I trusted Carl. “The Rutland Arms,” I lied.
I hoped he didn’t check. Moreton would not be on the guest list for tonight at the Rutland Arms. But, then again, Moreton wasn’t on the guest list for the Bedford Lodge either. I had booked our room in the name of Butcher.
“Well, I’m pooped,” said Carl, standing up. “I’m going home to bed.” The office usually doubled as a changing room, but, no doubt out of deference to Caroline, Carl took himself off to the gents’ to change out of his work clothes. I had always intended putting in a proper changing room, including a shower, but we had never quite got around to it.
Caroline placed Viola on her shoulder and played softly. It was wonderful. I watched her, and she stopped playing. “Don’t stop,” I said. “It’s beautiful.”
“I’m embarrassed,” she said.
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “On Thursday night, hundreds of people will be watching you.”
“That’s somehow different,” she said. “They won’t be just two feet from my nose.”
I pushed my chair away until I was at least four feet away. “Better?” I asked.
She didn’t answer but again placed Viola on her shoulder and played sweet music.
Carl came back into the office, changed. Caroline stopped, and he smiled at her. “Someone’s left a cell phone in the gents’,” he said, placing it on my desk. “Silly bugger. I’ll deal with it in the morning. Good night.” He turned to leave.
“’Night, Carl,” I said. “And thanks for holding down the fort.”
“No problem,” he said, and departed. I couldn’t actually say to him tonight that he needed to work on his man-management skills. I would deal with that in the morning too.
“Are we off?” said Caroline.
“Soon,” I said. “We’ll wait until Richard has finished up and gone too.”
The forgotten cell phone on my desk rang. Caroline and I looked at it.
“Hello,” I said, answering it at the fourth ring.
“Hello,” said a male voice at the other end. “I think that’s my phone.”
“Who is this?” I asked.
“George Kealy,” said the voice. “Is that you, Max?”
“Yes, George,” I said. “You left your phone in the gents’.”
“Thought so,” he said. “Stupid fool. Sorry. I’ll come and get it, if that’s OK.”
“Sure,” I said. “But we’ll be locked, so knock on the front door.”
“Will do,” he said, and he hung up.
Richard came back in to report that all the customers had now gone, and he was going too. “Oh,” he said, turning back, “Jacek is still here. He wants a word with you. He’s waiting for you in the kitchen.”
“Tell him to go home,” I said. “I’ll see him in the morning.”
“OK,” he said hesitatingly. “I’ve already told him that once, but he seemed very intent on waiting.”
“Well, tell him again,” I said. “He’s to go home now.” I had no intention of going alone into the kitchen with Jacek there. I wasn’t at all sure I could trust him.
“OK,” he said again. “I’ll tell him.”
“Come back to tell me when he’s gone,” I said. “And, Richard, please make sure he leaves completely.” I knew that Jacek rode a bicycle to and from his digs in the town. “Check he leaves on his bike.”
Richard looked at me somewhat strangely but nodded and went out.
There was a loud knock on the front door.
I went out into the entrance lobby between the bar and the dining room. I looked through the window into the parking lot. As expected, it was George Kealy. I had his phone in my hand.
I unlocked the door, but it wasn’t George Kealy’s foot that crashed it open, sending me reeling backwards. It was another man, and he held an automatic pistol in his hand and he was pointing it right between my eyes. Mr. Komarov, I presumed.
“George tells me that you’re a very difficult man to kill, Mr. Moreton,” he said, advancing through the door.
20
I retreated back from the door into the entrance lobby. Komarov and George Kealy followed.
Richard came out of the dining room, carrying a tray of dirty glasses from the last table. Komarov and I saw him at the same instant, and before I had a chance to shout a warning Komarov swung the gun around and shot him. The noise of the retort in the enclosed space was startling, and I jumped. A crimson star appeared on the front of Richard’s white shirt, and there was a slight look of surprise on his face as he pitched forward. The bullet had caught him in the center of his chest, and I was convinced he was dead before he hit the floor. The metal tray he had been holding clattered noisily to the floor and all the glasses shattered, sending hundreds of fragments in all directions across the stone tiles.
The gun came unerringly back to point at me, and I thought that this was it. He would surely kill me just as easily. Why shouldn’t he? He had tried twice before, why not a third time? The anger that I had channeled into my survival in my burning cottage rose again in me. I wasn’t going to just die without a fight.
Komarov saw the anger in me and read my intentions. “Don’t even think about it,” he said in almost perfect English, with just a hint of his native Russian accent that made the “think” sound like “sink.”
I stood my ground and looked at him. He was a thickset man in his mid-fifties, of about average height, with a full head of thick gray hair, well-coiffed. I realized I knew him from before. He had been George and Emma Kealy’s guest here at the Hay Net the first Saturday after the bombing. I remembered that George had called Emma to get going, “Peter and Tanya are waiting,” he had said. Peter and Tanya, George Kealy’s friends, were actually Pyotr and Tatiana Komarov, smugglers, bombers and murderers.
I found it difficult to believe that George was not the friendly regular customer I knew so well. I looked at him, but he didn’t seem to be embarrassed one bit by my predicament. He didn’t even seem shocked by what his friend had done to my headwaiter. I continued to stare at him, but he refused to look me in the eye. He simply appeared determined, and resigned to the necessity of such actions.
“I am going to kill you,” Komarov said to me. I didn’t doubt it. “But before I do,” he went on, “I want back what is mine that you have.”
“And what is that?” I said, finding it quite difficult to talk. My tongue seemed to be stuck to the roof of my mouth.