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.
‘You must have some idea,’ he said irritably.
‘When we got to the layby,’ Braley continued, recounting the familiar story, ‘Mr Ruttgers was just sitting in the car …’
‘Just sitting?’
‘Yes, sir. Staring straight ahead and doing nothing, except smiling. The engine was still running. And the telephone he’d used to call you was hanging off the hook, where he’d let it drop.’
‘The engine still running and there hadn’t been a police check?’ queried the Director.
‘Cuckfield is quite a way from the shooting,’ said Braley. ‘But it only took us about fifteen minutes from the Crawley hotel.’
‘Where the hell was he trying to go?’ wondered Smith. He spoke to a bespectacled man on his right.
‘Probably never know that,’ replied the embassy doctor. ‘Perhaps back to the hotel … perhaps nowhere. Just the urge to get away.’
‘How long will he be like that?’ asked Smith, nodding towards the immobile figure of the former Director.
‘Not long, I shouldn’t imagine,’ said the doctor. ‘I don’t think it’s anything much more than shock. Could be over in a few hours.’
As if conscious of the attention, Ruttgers suddenly stirred into life, smiling over at Smith and leaning forward to reinforce the words.
‘Killed him,’ gloated Ruttgers. ‘Shot the bastard, like we should have done weeks ago. Saw him fall. Dead. Charlie Muffin is dead. No need to worry any more … dead …’
‘But …’ began Braley, who had already had an enquiry made to the police. Smith waved him to silence. Christ knows what mental switchback the correction would make, he thought.
‘It could be days before we’re able to establish definitely whether Mr Ruttgers was seen sufficiently to be identified,’ offered Braley. He’d impressed the Director on this job, he knew. And wanted to go on doing so.
‘And we don’t have days,’ said the Director distantly. But they still had luck, he decided. Only just. But enough to matter; enough to avoid a humiliation as embarrassing as Vienna. Providing he handled it properly. Thank God that even mentally confused, the bloody man had wanted to boast, to prove how much better he was than the rest of them. Without that wild, incoherent contact it wouldn’t have been possible to have snatched him off the streets and brought him back to the safety and security of Grosvenor Square.
So he still had the advantage, determined the Director.
Now he had to capitalise upon it. Which meant Ruttgers had to be got out, immediately. And then buried as deeply as possible within some psychiatric clinic.
Smith realised he himself would have to remain in England, and attempt to establish some sort of relationship with whoever was going to succeed George Wilberforce to agree an approach which would satisfy the civilian police.