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Slowly, with great calculation and perhaps even a touch of heroism, Jim Stevens had begun to bang his head against the solid mahogany door.

Twenty-Six

‘I’d be a lot more use to you if you’d give me a gun.’

Miles blew his nose, breathed in the sharp, brand-new air, and examined the Sir Walter Scott monument. He was seated on a damp bench in Edinburgh’s Princes Street Gardens, with Collins, cold and looking it, standing in front of him.

‘How do you know that you can trust Monmouth? He’s been screwing you around all this time, what’s to stop him now?’

The monument, darkened by time to a suitably Gothic shade of black, pleased Miles more than he could say. He remembered climbing to the top once, back in his student days, and feeling claustrophobia while he climbed the narrow, winding stairwell, then fear when, at the top, he found that there was only a narrow circuit to traverse, the wind blowing fiercely and too many people trying to move up and down the stairs. It had seemed the perfect image of Scott’s novels.

‘I suppose this is why they called you Walter Scott, eh?’ said Collins now, changing the subject in an effort to elicit any kind of response from Miles.

A bitter wind was blowing the length of the gardens, and Miles was the only person mad enough to be sitting down in such unpleasant conditions. Those who walked past, swinging heavy shopping bags, mistook him for a tourist and smiled sympathetically, as if to say, fancy coming to Edinburgh at this time of year.

Collins didn’t look like a tourist. He looked like a beggar. He wrapped his coat a little more tightly around him and decided that if Flint would not answer him then he would not speak. He had been to Edinburgh once before, many years ago, on a fund-raising venture. He knew that fifty minutes would take him to Glasgow, and that from there it was a simple if lengthy journey by train and boat to Larne. Waverley Station was a short walk away: why didn’t he just make a run for it? Would Flint be crazy enough to shoot him in so public a place? One look at that contemplative face gave him his answer: of course he would. Flint had changed into the kind of man Collins was used to dealing with, and he wasn’t sure that he liked the change. He had felt some sympathy for the old, scared, confused Miles Flint. This new character would not appreciate such sentiment. But then what did it matter? He couldn’t run back to Ireland anyway, not like this. Those men in the meat van would still be sniffing around, and what could he tell his commanding officer about his own kidnapping by a member of MI5? If he had blown great big holes in Flint and that snake Monmouth, then yes, he could have returned. But he was not at all sure that he wanted to go back, for he knew that once back he would be forced to take sides again. He wanted to disappear, to become ordinary and invisible, to escape Miles Flint’s smile...

Miles was thinking of Sheila. He had come to this spot with her several times, of course. Right now, following his instructions, she would be clearing out of the house and selling the Jag to the dealer in Highgate. He had emptied their bank account for the price of the train fares north and the hotel. No one would think of looking for him at the most expensive hotel in Edinburgh, would they?

He watched Collins shuffle backward and forward in front of him, becoming ever more impatient, becoming agitated. That suited his plan, too. Everything would fall into place. He had given Collins his own room, showing his trust. But there was a connecting door. The hotel clerk had looked askance at the request, but Miles had gone on smiling. Trust me, his smile said, as I am trusting Will Collins, the enemy become ally.

Collins sat down on the damp bench. He needed Flint’s trust, the trust that would give him one of the handguns. With a handgun he would feel warmer and so much more secure. He still couldn’t believe Flint’s tale of finding the pistol in Champ’s tea caddy. What had the old fool been doing hiding it there in the first place? With a gun in my hand, he thought, I would shoot Miles Flint. He didn’t want to, but he would, in the way that one would extinguish a smoldering fire. Miles had become too dangerous by half, and did not realize that he could not win whatever game it was he thought himself playing. Collins would shoot him, but only enough to cripple him and make him safe again.

Then he would head south and seek out Monmouth, and he would shoot him dead. There was no question of that.

‘Let’s go up,’ said Miles.

‘Up where?’

‘Up the monument, of course. Come on.’ And he almost sprinted to the doorway, where the attendant took his money and mentioned that this was the last day the monument was open.

‘Closing for the season,’ he said.

‘Is there anyone else up there?’ Collins asked.

‘On a day like this? No, not a soul.’

Good, thought Collins, then this is where it ends.

Miles climbed ahead of him, his hands touching the cold stone walls. He had given Billy precise details of which train Partridge and the old boy were to take, and what they were to do upon arrival. He was not giving them time to think or to plan. He wanted them dazed, fuggy, off balance. Especially Partridge, for whom this little circus had been arranged. They would travel north by the slowest of trains, one which stopped at countless small stations. They would feel like death when they arrived.

But could he trust Billy? The man had betrayed him, had betrayed everyone. He was an agent of chaos, and he would produce chaos whenever and wherever he could. Miles didn’t care. No matter how much Billy gave away, Partridge would still come north. He might not come unprepared, but he would come.

And that was all Miles needed.

‘Not far now,’ he said, feeling the blood pumping through him, taking rests at the various levels of the ascent. Still, he didn’t feel like a museum beetle any more. He was the hunter.

‘Why is it,’ he called back to Collins, ‘that human colonies work toward chaos while insect colonies work toward harmony?’

‘You and your bloody insects,’ came the reply up the steps.

Collins was gaining strength with every moment, filling himself with the power and the speed that would be needed to disable Flint, to take him out of the game. He had to exhaust him, had to keep him talking, using up vital stamina.

‘We’re dead men,’ he called into the half-light. ‘I can see it clear as day.’

‘The good guys never die,’ said Miles Flint, his breath short.

‘Yes they do, they do it all the bloody time. Give me a gun.’

‘You’re going to have to trust me, Will, at least until tomorrow morning.’

‘Well, don’t blame me if you die a terrorist instead of a martyr.’ Collins had reached the top step and walked out into a fierce squall. The walkway was tiny, and there was no safety mesh, nothing to stop anyone from plummeting to the well-tended ground below.

‘Jesus,’ he whispered.

‘Scared of heights?’

‘Not until now.’ His face had lost all color, and he began to feel a vein of sweat on his spine.

‘But what a view, eh?’ said Miles, pointing northward towards the Forth estuary. ‘I should never have left this place.’

‘There’s probably some truth in that sure enough.’

‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine. It’s just this wind, it could blow a man right off here to his death.’

‘Do you think that’s why I brought you here?’

‘Well, is it?’

‘No, but I did think you might have a similar plan in store for me.’

‘Maybe I did.’

‘You’ve changed your mind?’

Collins pointed to Miles’s coat. ‘Your hand’s not in that pocket because it’s cold.’