‘You weren’t supposed to.’
Edith shivered.
‘Let’s get away from here, Charlie.’
‘There’s still the Brighton robbery,’ he said, calmly. ‘And Mayfair, too, although I’m not linked with that as far as the police are concerned.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘That we can’t get out, not immediately. I know who did them, apart from Snare. We can leak the man’s name to the police through Willoughby’s insurance outlets, like we did that of Wilberforce and Snare with the Fabergé collection.’
‘It won’t be long, will it, Charlie?’
‘Just days, that’s all,’ he said. ‘A week at the most.’
‘Then what?’
‘Anywhere you choose,’ he said. He put the wine glass down, feeling for her hand again.
‘Let’s go home to bed,’ he said.
She answered the pressure of his fingers.
‘And I won’t fail you there, either,’ he added. ‘Not this time.’
‘That’s not important,’ said the woman. ‘Having you safely back with me, that’s important.’
His training had been never to leave a vehicle in a car park, where there was a risk of being boxed in and trapped and Charlie had responded automatically, putting the mini on the edge of an annexe area, immediately adjoining the main road.
He had had to wait at the exit of the restaurant, to receive his change and tip the waiter and so Edith was about five yards ahead of him, walking towards the car, when he left the hotel.
She turned for him to catch up and because it was darker than in the main parking area he didn’t at first see the terror spreading over her face. Fear drained the strength from her voice, so the warning came out as little more than a gasp, hardly reaching him at first.
‘Charlie,’ she said. ‘Please God, no, Charlie.’
She came towards him, arms thrown out pleadingly and it was the movement that completely alerted him. She was staring beyond him, eyes bulged, Charlie realised. He turned back towards the hotel as the woman reached him and saw perfectly in the brighter light Garson Ruttgers spread over the bonnet of the car, his whole body supported, arms triangled out in the officially taught shooting position, left hand clamped against the right wrist to minimise the recoil from the gun.
It took seconds but seemed to unfold in an agonisingly slow motion. The need to snatch up Edith and run fixed itself firmly in his mind and stayed there, isolated, and he wondered why he couldn’t react and do such a simple thing.
Then Edith collided with him from behind and he reached out to support her, recognising as he did so that Ruttgers was going to shoot.
The lined, sharp face that Charlie remembered so well from the Kalenin affair tightened against the expected noise and the gun moved up slightly and Charlie even identified it as a heavy weapon, a .375 Magnum.
The explosion and the shock of the impact appeared simultaneous and almost immediately there was the roar of a second shot. Charlie tried to breathe, but couldn’t because of the biting pain which numbed his lungs from smashing backwards against the bordering stones of the forecourt. Edith was lying on top of him and he didn’t see Ruttgers move. He heard the sound of the car engine, though, and tried to get out from beneath the woman’s body and it was then he realised that she was quite motionless and stopped pushing at her.
The crushed breath groaned into him and then wailed up into an anguished moan. The action of supporting Edith had pulled her between them at the moment that Ruttgers had fired and she had taken the full impact of both shots and when Charlie felt up he discovered she didn’t have a back any more.
He rolled her away, very gently, crouching over her. The horror had gone from her face. Instead, in death, there was a pleading look, the sort of expression she had had asking him not to go to the cemetery, all those weeks ago.
‘Not you, Edith,’ he sobbed. ‘‘It shouldn’t have been you.’
A shoe had fallen half off her foot, he saw. As if it were important, he reached down and replaced it. And then tried to wipe away a smudge of dirt that had somehow got on to her cheek.
A scream came from the hotel, breaking through to him. He cradled her head against him, very quickly, then carefully lowered her to the ground.
‘I’ve got to run, Edith,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve got to.’
Largely governed by instinct, he went low to the car, doubled against recognition. He held the door shut, to avoid any noise, and as he started the engine, he saw just one man walking hesitantly towards the woman’s body.
He kept the lights off, so the registration would not be visible, accelerating the car out on to the road in a scurry of gravel. It was difficult to be sure because of the darkened windows of the vehicle, but the man’s reactions had been too slow to get anything more than a vague description, Charlie decided.
Which way, he wondered, had Edith’s killer gone? It hardly mattered. Ruttgers would have been part of the Crawley hotel surveillance. The part, in his carelessness, he had missed. He’d need a weapon, he decided. It was fortunate he had bothered to examine John Packer’s house. Why, he wondered, in the first flood of self-pity, hadn’t he shown such detailed caution about everything?
Twenty miles away, on the outskirts of the Sussex village of Cuckfield, Garson Ruttgers stared curiously at the Magnum revolver lying beside him on the passenger seat, then blinked out of the car. Condensation from the exhaust billowed whitely around him, making it difficult to see. A layby, he realised. With a telephone. That was it, a telephone; that’s why he’d stopped. He looked back to the gun. He’d done it. Now he had to let those bastards in London know. They’d have to admit he was right, decided Ruttgers, getting unsteadily from the vehicle. Succeeded where Onslow Smith and his team had failed. Get the Directorship back, after this, he thought Be good, hearing everyone admit how wrong they’d been.
Superintendent Law answered the telephone on the third ring, stretching the sleep from his eyes. Beside him his wife tugged at the bedclothes, showing her annoyance. Irritable cow, he thought.
‘Knew you’d want to be told immediately,’ said the equally tired voice of Hardiman.
‘What?’
‘Woman’s been shot outside of an hotel on the outskirts of Guildford … same name as our financier …’
‘Dead?’
‘Dead.’
Law swung out of bed, ignoring the growing protests of his wife.
‘I’ll be waiting when you get here,’ said the detective.
‘I won’t be able to sleep again now, not without a pill,’ complained the woman, but Law had already closed the bathroom door.
‘Damn it,’ she said, miserably, dragging the covers over her.
TWENTY-NINE
Apart from Ruttgers, oblivious in his private reverie, everyone sat silently awaiting Onslow Smith’s lead.
‘Damn,’ said the Director. ‘Damn, damn, damn.’
With the repetition of every word, he punched hard at the desk, needing physical movement to show his rage and there were isolated shifts of embarrassment from the men watching.
Since they’d arrived at the embassy, Smith had done little but vent his temper in irascible, theatrical gestures, his mind blocked by what had happened.
Apparently aware of the impression he was creating, the Director straightened.
‘Right,’ he said, as if calling a meeting to order.
The shuffling stopped.
‘You’re positive he hasn’t been identified?’ demanded Onslow Smith.
‘Of course I can’t be positive,’ said Braley, uncomfortable with the question he had already answered.
He’d been so near, thought Smith, in a sudden flush of remorse. So damn near. And then the fucking paranoid had to go and screw everything up. It would be wrong to let Washington know yet.