by Mark Arundel
‘Meriwether must have asked Xing to stay in London.’ I said. ‘He chose the Ritz. He wanted her close.’
‘Why?’
‘He must have already known he was at risk of a sanctioned termination order and needed Xing as his protection.’
‘How would he know he was at risk of a sanctioned termination order?’ Charlotte knew the answer to that question.
‘He must be Santiago,’ I said. Charlotte’s eyes remained on the road. The traffic ahead moved off and Charlotte pulled away.
‘Well, he knows about the S.T., he has Xing for protection and his location is unknown to Treadwell so for the time being it would appear he’s safe.’
‘Yes, but how’s he going to get out of it? He can’t hide forever.’
We turned onto Whitehall, drove past the Houses of Parliament and raced down Millbank. All the traffic had disappeared and left a clear stretch of tarmac that Charlotte conquered using the powerful engine. She braked late for the roundabout at Lambeth Bridge and rapid hands spun the wheel over and back.
Bare trees lined the water’s edge like a collection of artistically arranged sticks. They cleared and ahead Vauxhall Bridge appeared. We both glanced across the Thames at the formidable, hard-edged building that jutted strongly above the murky water. Neither of us spoke. The route curved gently with the river until we pointed westward. Ahead, my apartment building appeared. Charlotte indicated and turned off. She drove down the ramp and the air and sound changed as we moved underground. We stopped, got out and took the lift to my floor. I unlocked the apartment door and we entered.
‘It feels cold in here,’ Charlotte said removing her hat and coat. She shook out her hair while arranging it with her fingers. Under her coat, she wore a tailored dress that had creases at the waist.
I raised the thermostat and heard the boiler fire up. ‘Do you want a drink?’ I asked. It was the middle of the afternoon.
‘Make me a martini,’ she said. I was expecting her to ask for a cup of tea. I emptied my pockets.
‘I’ve still got Grace’s K106,’ I said and placed it down on the table.
‘Don’t worry; she’ll get a new one.’
‘Can anybody track it?’
‘Nobody knows you have it,’ she said. Charlotte leant against the counter and watched me pour the gin. ‘Do your injuries hurt?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It’s my head and jawbone. How do I look?’ In reply, Charlotte raised her eyebrows.
‘What about your arm?’ she asked. Charlotte was different when we were alone. The cool sophistication, the apathy, the intellect, they all faded and her natural femininity came out.
‘It’s badly bruised, that’s all,’ I said. She touched my forearm gently with her fingers.
‘How big was the dog?’
‘His name was Rambo,’ I said. Charlotte laughed.
‘Should you see a doctor about your head?’
‘I was unconscious for a while and probably had a concussion, but I don’t think my skull’s cracked. I slept on the plane. I think I’ll be all right.’ Charlotte smiled. I was a Tupi warrior, brave and strong. I filled a glass with water from the tap and swallowed three painkillers. Seeing a doctor was probably a sensible idea, but sensible ideas were not always the ones I followed.
Charlotte took the martini from my hand and raised it to her lips. She drank twice.
‘What are we going to do?’ I asked.
‘Praise the God of all, drink the wine and let the world be the world,’ she said.
‘Well, while you’re doing that,’ I said, ‘I’m going to take a shower.’ She followed me into the bedroom.
‘What did you think of Grace?’ she asked. I pulled off over my head the “Rio de Janeiro” t-shirt and threw it on the bed.
‘She was determined to have Snowy killed and me too if necessary.’
‘She’s attractive, though.’
‘Yeah, in the same way that a tiger’s attractive just before it rips your head off.’
‘I’ve known her a long time.’
‘She said you were at university together.’
‘Yes, we were. We met on our very first day. I thought her eyes had supernatural powers as if they could see what nobody else could see.’
‘Her eyes are just blue,’ I said. Charlotte was right of course. It was hard not to allow Grace’s personality from exerting its hypnotic power. A power she fired out with death ray precision through those beguiling eyes.
‘You must have felt it,’ Charlotte said.
‘They’re just blue,’ I repeated and sat down on the bed and took off my trainers and socks.
‘She was so angry with you,’ Charlotte said. ‘She’s used to getting her own way. I don’t think many men have ever stood up to her. Not in the way you did anyway.’
I got up from the bed and pulled off my shorts. Charlotte looked at my nakedness just as Grace had done in the back of Bruno’s taxi. I started to move towards the en-suite but Charlotte put out a hand and stopped me. Her fingers pressed against my chest. ‘I really thought you were dead,’ she said and her eyes narrowed as if recounting the memory and the emotion she had felt.
‘Three can keep a secret,’ I said, ‘if two of them are dead.’
‘Where did that come from?’
‘It’s something Meriwether once told me,’ I said. Charlotte thought about replying but then decided to remain silent. She turned around.
‘Unzip me,’ she said looking over her shoulder. I pulled the zip down and her dress fell open as if I had cut it with a knife. She wriggled her hips and the material dropped and became a crumpled ring on the floor. She stepped out and turned towards me. Her underwear was black and lacy. ‘Pull my boots off,’ she said and sat on the bed. She lifted one leg and pointed a boot-covered toe at me. I pulled off the boot and dropped it onto the floor. She lifted the other one and I pulled that off too. With her eyes still on me, her hands went behind her back and her bra came off. She sat back, lifted her knees and as I watched she made the strip complete.
She stood up and with her eyes never leaving mine, stepped slowly towards me. My own eyes lowered to her moving body before returning to her face. She stopped, very close and very still. ‘I thought you said we had a lot to do,’ I said.
‘We do,’ she said, ‘and this is the first thing on the list.’ My arms went around her and our bodies pressed together.
A near miss with the Reaper has a unique way of heightening the pleasures derived from the physical expression of life.
24
FRIDAY, 16:59—17:44
It was dark now.
Outside, the lights from the opposite bank streaked over the water and coloured the Thames like carnival war paint.
Standing alone, I watched the flowing river below and wondered why Xing had agreed to stay in London to protect Meriwether. To me, it seemed a strange decision for her to make. For Meriwether’s part, foreseeing the possible danger to his life, it was a very sensible arrangement to construct. When I advised him to use Xing, he already had her in place. This realisation did not surprise me.
Charlotte was in the bedroom connected to some secret intelligence network in an attempt to glean a piece of information that would assist in her need to locate Meriwether.
I left the river view and went into the kitchen to make coffee. While waiting for it to percolate I noticed Grace’s K106 where I had left it on the table and decided to check it. It showed four missed calls. With the phone still in my hand, the screen indicated another call. Neither the K106 nor I recognised the number. ‘Hello,’ I answered.
‘Come to the Square.’ She spoke without identifying herself. Not that it mattered. I recognised her distinctive voice immediately. ‘Come now. Make sure nobody follows you. Tell nobody. Especially not C.’ I made to speak, but she was gone. It was Xing. She had sounded the same as always. Her impassiveness, her indifference defined who she was like the leopard’s spots or the shark’s fin.
I left the coffee unmade
and returned to the bedroom. Charlotte was in the en-suite taking a shower. I dressed quickly in dark clothes, pocketed the K106 together with my wallet and left the apartment.
The only Square to which Xing could have been referring was St. James’s Square, which was the location of Meriwether’s club and where I suspected he lived.
At the entrance to my apartment building, I paused. The early evening air was dry and cold. Traffic sounds and city lights mingled in the stillness like an urban orchestra giving a non-stop performance. I scanned the area beyond the wall and the road before moving to the second opening where I remained inside the angle of sight. Between the vehicles and the pedestrians, I searched the opposite pavement. It looked all clear. I stepped out and turned up the street towards the crossing. It was then that I saw them. They were standing together. One of them was smoking and the other had his hands inside his coat pockets. His head turned and I knew he had seen me.
Without waiting for the lights to change, I hurried across the road between the moving cars and headed towards the bus stop. At the corner, I glanced back. One of them had followed. It was the smoker.
I reached the bus stop and waited. He approached, hung back and then stopped and leant against the wall. Several minutes passed. The number 24 bus arrived and I boarded with the other passengers. I paid using my Oyster card and sat at the front. The bus was almost full. He was the last to get on. He too paid with a card. He avoided looking at me and sat on the opposite side in the middle. His hair was short, his face clean-shaven and he was aged around forty. I thought he looked ex-military.
After only a short ride, we stopped at Victoria station and I got off. The man got off too and followed.
The wonderful thing about Victoria station is that the Victorians built it. That was something Meriwether had told to me. He liked to tell me things like that. I remembered it now. On a Friday evening, one of the other wonderful things about Victoria was the people. Hordes of travelling people packed the station. It provided the ideal environment in which to lose a tail. My tail must have thought so too because he rushed closer as we entered from Victoria Street before we became completely swallowed by the crowd.
I passed the ticket office, taking care to avoid the wheeled suitcases that rushed in all directions and the hurrying commuters making their way home.
Once fully inside the impressive concourse I slowed and stopped. My tail remained close. I started again fast, weaving a path through the mass of bodies and aiming for the centre and the cluster of shops. Without breaking my measured stride, I entered the newsagents and attempted to disappear behind the shelves of paperback books and bars of chocolate. I thought I had lost him, but as I left the shop, he was waiting. With only one retail opening, it was simple for him. If I were going to lose him then I would have to do better.
The mass of bodies moving inside the huge open space continued unabated. Pausing for a second to consider what next to try, I found my thoughts turning to Xing and wondering why she had summoned me. I wanted to reach the Square so I could find her. It was time to lose my shadow.
Leaving the newsagents behind, I turned away to my right and strode with as much efficiency as I could through the throng of people. More shops appeared and an information kiosk. Ahead, I saw the last rail track and a right-angled turn where the density of people was lighter. As my feet made the turn, they went from walking to sprinting. I raced away, dodging continually to avoid a collision, turned at the opening and rushed out through the side entrance.
The illumination changed from stark electric light to low-level street lamps and vehicle headlights. The darkness was an instant benefit. Without stopping, I saw the taxi rank along the street to my right. A long queue of travellers waited. A single black cab clattered away while two others returned to collect their next fares. Ignoring the taxis, I hurried left, cut onto the road through the parked cars and took cover behind a transit van.
My follower burst onto the pavement and stopped. He searched the street, failed to see me and then turned towards the taxi rank. Keeping low and using the parked vehicles to maintain my cover I rushed to the corner. After glancing back to ensure I was out of sight, I made the turn and re-joined the busy crowd.
One option was to re-enter the station and take the tube to Green Park or Piccadilly. I considered it, but only for a second. Having lost my tail, the safest and probably the quickest way to St. James’s Square was Shanks’ pony. I sped through the crowd and away from the station lights. I only had about a mile to walk and less than ten minutes would see me there.
Heading north on Wilton Road I looked back to make certain nobody was following. My tail was definitely gone.
Within a few minutes, I was on Birdcage Walk, heading east. I turned north, skirted Buckingham Palace and then cut through Green Park. I passed the Sudanese embassy and walked straight onto Pall Mall. After a right turn into King Street, the Square appeared ahead. The well-designed Georgian architecture was unmistakable.
I had known more detailed meeting arrangements than the one Xing had made. By only saying “the Square”, she could have meant Meriwether’s club, or his place of residence, which I did not know, or the garden within the buildings. I decided to scout the garden first.
Sheltered inside the sturdy Georgian buildings the generous city garden was calm and peaceful. Mostly laid to grass, its mature trees stood naked and bleak in the soft light from the surrounding windows. Observing from behind a row of parked motorcycles it was quiet and seemed deserted.
Entering cautiously from the road, I paused on the outer pathway that followed the boundary and waited. As far as I knew, the Square was safe and Xing’s arrangement was trustworthy but even so.
Walking the pathway clockwise, the only people I saw were a young woman and two men who were smoking cigarettes and talking together softly. They barely glanced over at me.
After reaching the pathway on the other side that led to the middle, I stopped. Beyond the bushes and the tree trunk, I could make out the pale base and dark sculpture above of William III astride his horse. I took the new trail, which connected with an inner pathway and began circling the statue. Before I had reached halfway, my sight line cleared and ahead I saw two dark figures sitting closely together on a wooden bench. Their heads were covered. One wore a hat and the other a hood. The hooded figure was smaller. As I approached, the figure stood and turned towards me. The hood cast the face in shadow. I stopped and waited. A flick of the hand removed the hood and thick, loosely tied, raven hair fell out. In the half-light the face was monochrome, the black eyes shone and the grey lips, although slightly parted, were expressionless. It was Xing.
‘Hello,’ she said. Seeing her again produced in me an unexpected reaction. It was a feeling I recognised from whenever I saw a member of my unit in the regiment. It was the feeling that comes from shared experiences, shared capabilities and the knowledge that you depended on one another for your lives. The feeling I had for Xing was respect. The fact that I knew she was an assassin without remorse and that Meriwether had told me that in his opinion she was a nihilist did not change the way I felt. I found it difficult to reason an explanation.
After studying her face for a second, I glanced at the seated figure and then looked back at Xing. ‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘We’ve been waiting for you,’ the seated figure said. ‘I expect the traffic’s bad. Did you walk?’ I recognised the voice and looked again at the face. Usually, he never wore a hat and this face had a beard. I looked closer.
‘Why are you wearing a false beard?’ I asked.
‘Well, you said to do whatever she told me, and she told me to wear a false beard,’ Meriwether said.
‘Positive identification of the target is sometimes one of the hardest aspects of the assassin’s job,’ Xing said. ‘It might surprise you to know just how easy it is to kill the wrong person.’
‘So, you stuck a false beard on him,’ I said.
‘Any doubt may cause delay or even p
ostponement,’ she said.
‘You look like King Lear in an amateur dramatics production,’ I said.
‘Who is it that can tell me who I am?’ Meriwether said theatrically and stood up.
‘Perhaps the King would like to tell me what’s going on,’ I said.
‘Did anybody follow you?’ he asked looking down the pathway along which I had just walked as if expecting to see somebody.
‘There were two men waiting outside my apartment building,’ I said. ‘One of them followed me, but I lost him at Victoria station.’
‘Excellent,’ Meriwether said. ‘Now then, let’s go to mine and get in out of the cold. I’ll tell you everything once we’re inside.’ I turned to follow Meriwether and saw Xing staring at my face. I thought I saw something in her black eyes, something unexpected, but I may have been wrong.
25
CHARLOTTE MILLER
Charlotte Miller came back into the bedroom still damp from the shower. She held a towel to her hair. Where the lamplight caught her skin, it shone. She called out his name. Looking down she noticed a smear of moisturiser on her left breast and used her palm to rub it in. Her reflection in the mirror was pink and warm like an autumn sunset seen through copper trees.
Moving to the doorway, still drying her hair she called out his name again and then listened. The apartment was silent. She walked across the hallway and looked inside the kitchen and then inside the living room. He was not there. She was alone. He had left and left without telling her.
She went back to the kitchen. The K106 was gone. She returned to the bedroom, found her phone and called the number. He did not answer. She stopped and thought and then tried Meriwether, but he did not answer either. She felt annoyance and then she felt concern. Where had he gone and why?
The hairdryer blew against her head and masked the hearing in one ear and then the other ear as she moved it over.
She applied a little make-up, fastened her wristwatch and then dressed. She checked her phone before calling the number again. Still he did not answer.