The Gun Seller

by Hugh Laurie

  I'm not absolutely sure, but I think that was when the gun went off.

  I don't remember the actual feeling of being hit. Just the flatness of the sound in the gallery, and the smell of burnt whatever it is they use nowadays.

  At first I thought it was McCluskey she'd shot, and I started to swear at her because I had everything under control, and anyway, I'd told her to get out of here. And then I thought Christ, I must be sweating a lot, because I could feel it running down my side, trickling wetly into my waistband. I looked up, and realised that Sarah was going to fire again. Or maybe she already had. McCluskey had wriggled free and I seemed to be falling back against one of the paintings.

  'You stupid bitch,' I think I said, 'I'm... on your side. This is him ... the one . . . he's the one ... to kill your father. Fuck.'

  The fuck was because everything was starting to go strange now. Light, sound, action.

  Sarah was standing right over me, and I suppose, maybe, if circumstances had been different, I'd have been enjoying her legs. But they weren't different. They were the same. And all I could look at now was the gun.

  'That would be very strange, Mr Lang,' she said. 'He could do that at home.' I suddenly couldn't make anything of this. Lots of things were wrong, very wrong, the numbness down my left side being not the least of them. Sarah knelt down next to me and put the muzzle of the gun under my chin.

  'This,' she jerked a thumb towards McCluskey, 'is my father.'

  As I can't remember any more, I assume I must have blacked out.

  'How are you feeling?'

  It's a question you're bound to get asked when you're lying on your back in a hospital bed, but I wish she hadn't asked it all the same. My brain was scrambled to the point where you usually have to summon the waiter and ask for a refund, and it would have made more sense for me to be asking her how I felt. But she was a nurse, and therefore unlikely to be trying to kill me, so I decided to like her for the time being.

  With a mighty effort, I ungummed my lips and croaked back at her, 'Fine.'

  'That's good,' she said. 'Doctor will be along to see you shortly.' She patted the back of my hand and disappeared.

  I closed my eyes for a few moments, and when I opened them it was dark outside. A white coat was standing over me, and despite the fact that its wearer looked young enough to be my bank manager, I could only assume he was a doctor. He gave me my wrist back, although I wasn't aware that he'd been holding it, and jotted something down on a clipboard.

  'How are you feeling?'

  'Fine.'

  He kept on writing.

  'Well you shouldn't be. You've been shot. Lost quite a bit of blood, but that's not a problem. You were lucky. Passed through your armpit.' He made it sound as if the whole thing was my own silly fault. Which, in a way, it was.

  'Where am I?' I said.

  'Hospital.'

  He went away.

  Later, a very fat woman came in with a trolley and put a plate of something brown and foul-smelling on a table beside me. I couldn't imagine what I'd ever done to her, but whatever it was, it must have been bad.

  She obviously realised that she'd over-reacted, because half an hour later she came and took the plate away again. Before she left, she told me where I was. The Middlesex Hospital, William Hoyle Ward.

  My first proper visitor was Solomon. He came in, looking steady and eternal, sat down on the bed and chucked a paper bag of grapes on to the table.

  'How are you feeling?'

  A definite pattern was emerging here.

  'I feel,' I said, 'almost exactly as if I've been shot, I'm now lying in a hospital trying to recover, and a Jewish policeman is sitting on my foot.' He shifted his weight slightly along the bed.

  'They tell me you were lucky, master.'

  I popped a grape.

  'Lucky as in ... ?'

  'As in it being only a couple of inches away from your heart.'

  'Or a couple of inches away from missing me altogether. Depends on your point of view.'

  He nodded, considering this.

  'What's yours?' he said, after a while.

  'What's my what?'

  'Point of view.'

  We looked at each other.

  'That England should play a flat back four against Holland,' I said.

  Solomon lifted himself off the bed and started to unpeel his raincoat, and I could hardly blame him. The temperature must have been in the nineties, and there seemed to be far, far too much air in the room. It was bunched and crowded, and in your face and eyes, and it made you think the room was a rush-hour tube train, and a lot of extra air had managed to sneak in just as the doors were closing.

  I'd asked a nurse if she could turn the temperature down a little, but she'd told me that the heating was controlled by a computer in Reading. If I was the sort of person who writes letters to The Daily Telegraph, I'd have written a letter to The Daily Telegraph.

  Solomon hung his coat on the back of the door.

  'Well now, sir,' he said, 'believe it or not the ladies and gentlemen who pay my wages have asked me to extract from you an explanation as to how you came to be lying on the floor of a prestigious West End art gallery, with a bullet hole in your chest.'

  'Armpit.'

  'Arm, if you prefer, pit. Now will you tell me, master, or am I going to have to hold a pillow over your face until you co-operate?'

  'Well,' I said, thinking that we may as well get down to business, 'I presume you know that McCluskey is Woolf.' I hadn't presumed any such thing, of course. I just wanted to sound efficient. It was obvious from Solomon's expression that he hadn't known, so I pressed on. 'I follow McCluskey to the gallery, thinking he might be there to do something unpleasant to Sarah. I bop him, get shot by Sarah, who then tells me that the boppee was, in fact, her father, Alexander Woolf.'

  Solomon nodded calmly, the way he always did when he heard weird stuff.

  'Whereas you,' he said eventually, 'had him down as a man who had offered you money to kill Alexander Woolf?'

  'Right.'

  'And you assumed, master, as I'm sure many would in your position, that when a man asks you to kill someone, the someone is not going to turn out to be the man himself.'

  'It's not the way we do it on planet Earth, certainly.'

  'Hmm.' Solomon had drifted over to the window where he seemed captivated by the Post Office Tower.

  'That's it, is it?' I said. '"Hmm"? The Ministry of Defence report on this is going to consist of "Hmm", bound in leather with a gold seal and signed by the Cabinet?'

  Solomon didn't answer, but just kept staring at the Post Office Tower.

  'Well then,' I said, 'tell me this. What's happened to Woolfs major and minor? How did I get here? Who rang the ambulance? Did they stay with me until it came?'

  'Have you ever eaten at that restaurant, the one that goes round and round at the top ... ?'

  'David, for Christ's sake ...'

  'The person who actually rang for the ambulance was a Mr Terence Glass, owner of the gallery in which you were shot, and putter-in of a claim to have your blood removed from his floor at the Ministry's expense.'

  'How touching.'

  'Although the ones who saved your life were Green and Baker.'

  'Green and Baker?'

  'Been following you about a lot. Baker held a handkerchief over the wound.'

  This was a shock. I'd assumed, after my beer session with Solomon, that the two followers had been called off. I'd been sloppy. Thank God.

  'Hurrah for Baker,' I said.

  Solomon appeared to be about to tell me something else when he was interrupted by the door opening. O'Neal was very quickly among us. He came straight over to the side of my bed, and I could tell from his expression that he thought my getting shot was a thoroughly splendid development.

  'How are you feeling?' he said, almost managing not to smile.

  'Very well, thank you Mr O'Neal.'

  There was a pause, and his face fell slightly.

/>   'Lucky to be alive is what I heard,' he said. 'Except that from now on, you might think that you're unlucky to be alive.' O'Neal was very pleased with that. I had a vision of him rehearsing it in the lift. 'Well this is it, Mr Lang. I don't see how we can keep this one away from the police. In the presence of witnesses, you made a clear attempt on Woolf's life

  O'Neal stopped, and he and I both looked round the room, at floor level, because the sound we'd heard was definitely that of a dog being sick. Then we heard it again, and both realised that it was Solomon, clearing his throat.

  'With respect, Mr O'Neal,' said Solomon, now that he had our attention, 'Lang was under the impression that the man he was assaulting was, in fact, McCluskey.'

  O'Neal closed his eyes.

  'McCluskey? Woolf was identified by ...'

  'Yes, absolutely,' said Solomon, gently. 'But Lang maintains that Woolf and McCluskey are one and the same man.'

  A long silence.

  'I beg your pardon?' said O'Neal.

  The superior smile had disappeared from his face, and I suddenly felt like bounding out of bed.

  O'Neal gave a fat little snort. 'McCluskey and Woolf are one and the same man?' he said, his voice cracking into a falsetto. 'Are you entirely sane?'

  Solomon looked to me for confirmation.

  'That's about the size of it,' I said. 'Woolf is the man who approached me in Amsterdam, and asked me to kill a man called Woolf.'

  The colour had now completely dribbled out of O'Neal's face. He looked like a man who's just realised that he's posted a love letter in the wrong envelope.

  'But that's not possible,' he stammered. 'I mean, it makes no sense.'

  'Which doesn't mean it's not possible,' I said.

  But O'Neal wasn't really hearing anything now. He was in an awful state. So I pushed on for Solomon's benefit.

  'I know I'm only the parlour maid,' I said, 'and it's not my place to speak, but this is how my theory goes. Woolf knows that there are some parties around the globe who would like him to cease living. He .does the usual sort of thing, buys a dog, hires a bodyguard, doesn't tell anyone where he's going until he's already got there, but,' and I could see O'Neal shake himself into concentrating, 'he knows that that isn't enough. The people who want him dead are very keen, very professional, and sooner or later they'll poison the dog and bribe the bodyguard. So he has a choice.'

  O'Neal was staring at me. He suddenly realised that his mouth was open, and shut it with a snap.

  'Yes?'

  'He can either take the war to them,' I said, 'which for all we know, may not be feasible. Or he can ride the punch.' Solomon was chewing his lip. And he was right to, because this was all sounding terrible. But it was better than anything they could come up with just now. 'He finds someone who he knows isn't going to accept the job, and he gives them the job. He lets it be known that a contract is out on his own life, and hopes that his real enemies will slow up for a while because they think that the job will get done anyway without them having to take any risks or spend any money.'

  Solomon was back on Post Office Tower duty, and O'Neal was frowning.

  'Do you really believe that?' he said. 'I mean, do you think that's possible?' I could see that he was desperate for a handle, any handle, even if it came off with the first flush.

  'Yes, I think it's possible. No, I don't believe it. But I'm recovering from a gunshot wound, and it's the best I can do.'

  O'Neal started to pace the floor, running his hands through his hair. The heat in the room was getting to him too, but he didn't have time to get rid of his coat.

  'All right,' he said, 'somebody may want Woolf dead. I can't pretend that Her Majesty's government would be heartbroken if he walked under a bus tomorrow. Granted, his enemies may be considerable, and normal precautions useless. So far, so good. Yes, he can't take the war to them,' O'Neal rather liked that phrase, I could tell, 'so he puts out a fake contract on himself. But that doesn't work.' O'Neal stopped pacing and looked at me. T mean, how could he be sure it would be fake? How could he know that you wouldn't go through with it?'

  I looked at Solomon, and he knew I was looking at him, but he didn't look back.

  'I've been asked before,' I said. 'Offered a lot more money.

  I said no. Maybe he knew that.'

  O'Neal suddenly remembered how much he disliked me.

  'Have you always said no?' I stared back at O'Neal, as coolly as I could. 'I mean, maybe you've changed,' he said.

  'Maybe you suddenly need the money. It's a ridiculous risk.'

  I shrugged, and my armpit hurt.

  'Not really,' I said. 'He had the bodyguard, and at least with me he knew where the threat would come from. Rayner was hanging around me for days before I got into the house.'

  'But you went to the house, Lang. You actually ...'

  'I went there to warn him. I thought it was a neighbourly thing to do.'

  'All right. All right.' O'Neal got stuck into some more pacing. 'Now how does he "let it be known" that this contract is out? I mean, does he write it on lavatory walls, put an advertisement in the Standard, what?'

  'Well, you knew about it.' I was starting to get tired now. I wanted sleep and maybe even a plate of something brown and foul-smelling.

  'We are not his enemies, Mr Lang,' said O'Neal. 'Not in that sense, at any rate.'

  'So how did you find out that I was supposedly after him?'

  O'Neal stopped, and I could see him thinking that he'd already said whole volumes too much to me. He looked over at Solomon crossly, blaming him for not being a good enough chaperon. Solomon was a picture of calm.

  'I don't see why we shouldn't tell him that, Mr O'Neal,' he said. 'He's had a bullet through his chest through no fault of his own. Might make it heal quicker if he knows why it happened.'

  O'Neal took a moment to digest this, and then turned to me.

  'Very well,' he said. 'We received the information about your meeting with McCluskey, or Woolf...' He was hating this. 'We received this information from the Americans.'

  The door opened and a nurse came in. She might have been the one who patted my hand when I first woke up, but I couldn't swear to it. She looked straight through Solomon and O'Neal, and came over to fiddle with my pillows, plumping them up, pushing them about, making them considerably less comfortable than they had been.

  I looked up at O'Neal.

  'Do you mean the CIA?'

  Solomon smiled, and O'Neal nearly wet himself.

  The nurse didn't even flicker.

  SIX

  The hour is come, but not the man.

  WALTER SCOTT

  I was in hospital for seven meals, however long that is. I watched television, took painkillers, tried to do all the half-finished crosswords in the back numbers of Woman's Own. And asked myself a lot of questions.

  For a start, what was I doing? Why was I getting in the way of bullets, fired by people I didn't know, for reasons I didn't understand? What was in it for me? What was in it for Woolf? What was in it for O'Neal and Solomon? Why were the crosswords half-finished? Had the patients got better, or died, before completing them? Had they come into hospital to have half their brain removed, and was this the proof of the surgeon's skill? Who had ripped the covers off these magazines and why? Can the answer to 'Not a woman (3)' really be 'man'?

  And why, above all, was there a picture of Sarah Woolf pasted on the inside of the door of my mind, so that whenever I yanked it open, to think of anything - afternoon television, smoking a cigarette in the lavatory at the end of the ward, scratching an itchy toe - there she was, smiling and scowling at me simultaneously? I mean, for the hundredth time, this was a woman I was quite definitely not in love with.

  I thought Rayner might be able to answer at least some of these questions, so when I judged myself well enough to get up and shuffle around, I borrowed a dressing-gown and headed upstairs to the Barrington Ward.

  When Solomon had told me that Rayner was also in the Middlesex Hospit
al, I'd been, for a moment at least, surprised. It seemed ironic that the two of us should end up getting repaired in the same shop, after all we'd been through together. But then, as Solomon pointed out, there aren't many hospitals left in London these days, and if you hurt yourself anywhere south of the Watford Gap, you're liable to end up in the Middlesex sooner or later.

  Rayner had a room to himself, directly opposite the nurses' desk, and he was wired up to a lot of bleeping boxes. His eyes were closed, either from sleep or coma, and his head was wrapped in a huge, cartoon bandage, as if Road Runner had dropped that safe just once too often. And he wore blue flannelette pyjamas, which, perhaps for the first time in a lot of years, made him look child-like. I stood by his bed for a while, feeling sorry for him, until a nurse appeared and asked me what I wanted. I said I wanted a lot of things, but would settle for knowing Rayner's first name.

  Bob, she said. She stood at my elbow, with her hand on the door-knob, wanting me to leave, but deferring to my dressing-gown.

  I'm sorry, Bob, I thought.

  There you were, just doing what you were told, what you were paid to do, and some arse comes along and hits you with a marble Buddha. That's rough.

  Of course, I knew that Bob wasn't exactly a choirboy. He wasn't even the boy who bullies the choirboy. At the very best, he was the older brother of the boy who bullies the boy who bullies the choirboy. Solomon had looked Rayner up in the MoD files, and found that he'd been chucked from the Royal Welch Fusiliers for black-marketeering - anything from army boot laces to Saracen armoured cars had gone through the barrack gates under Bob Rayner's jersey - but even so, I was the one who'd hit him, so I was the one who felt sorry for him.

  I put what was left of Solomon's grapes on the table by his bed, and left.

  Men and women in white coats tried to get me to stay in hospital for a few more days, but I shook my head and told them I was fine. They tutted, and made me sign a few things, and then they showed me how to change the dressing under my arm and told me to come straight back if the wound started to feel hot or itchy.

  I thanked them for their kindness, and refused their offer of a wheelchair. Which was just as well, because the lift had stopped working.