"Some holiday," I joked. "He"d work it out for himself, no matter what we said."
"But if it"s something more, then we really should tell him, don"t you think?"
I nodded agreement, saying nothing.
Well?" she persisted. "Which is it?"
"Which do you think?"
"You"re infuriating."
"Look, Bel, we"ve not known each other ... I mean, not like this ... for very long. It hasn"t been what you"d call a courtship, has it?"
She grinned at the memories: producing the gun in Chuck"s Gym, fleeing his men in Upper Norwood, making false doc.u.ments in Tottenham, pretending to be police officers ...
"Besides," I said, "the sort of work I"m in doesn"t exactly make for a home life. I"ve no real friends, I"m not sure I"d even know how to begin the sort of relationship you"re suggesting."
Now she looked hurt. "Well, that"s very honest of you, Michael. Only it sounds a bit feeble, a bit like self-pity."
My first course arrived. I ate a few mouthfuls before saying anything. Bel was looking out of the window. Either that or she was studying my reflection. It struck me that she knew so little about me. The person she"d seen so far wasn"t exactly typical. It was like she"d been seeing a reflection all along.
"Once you get to know me," I confided, "I"m a really boring guy. I don"t do much, I don"t say much."
"What are you trying to tell me? You think I"m looking for Action Man, and I"m not." She unfolded her napkin. "Look, forget I said anything, all right?"
"All right," I said.
I thought about our relationship so far. There"d been some kissing and hugging, and we"d spent two nights together. We hadn"t done anything though, we"d just lain 178.
together in the near-dark, comfortable and semi-clad. It wasn"t that I didn"t want to make love with her. I don"t know what it was.
Part of me wished I"d left her behind in London, or insisted on dropping her off in Yorkshire. It was hard to concentrate with her around. I knew it was harder to take risks, too. I"d taken them in London, then regretted them afterwards. In Scotland, I wouldn"t take any, not with her around. I"d be like one of those Harley Davidson riders, forced by circ.u.mstance to wear a crash helmet. But when I looked across the table at her, I was glad she was there looking back at me, no matter how sulkily. She kept my mind off Hoffer. He was in danger of becoming an obsession. He"d come close to me once before, last year, after a hit in Atlanta, not far from the World of Coca-Cola. I"d visited the museum before the hit, since my target would visit there during his stay in the city.
But in the end I hit him getting out of his limo outside a block of offices. He was being feted in the penthouse suite while he was in Atlanta. The b.a.s.t.a.r.d was so tough, he lived a few hours after my bullet hit home. That doesn"t normally happen with a heart shot. It"s the reason I don"t shoot to the head: you can blast away a good portion of skull and brain and the victim can survive. Not so with a heart shot. They took him to some hospital and I waited for news of his demise. If he"d lived, that would have been two fails from three attempts and my career would not have been in good shape.
After the news of his death, I moved out of my hotel. I"d been there for days, just waiting. Across the street was an ugly windowless edifice, some kind of clothing market. "A garment district in a box" was how a fellow drinker in the hotel bar described it. It was so grey and featureless, it made me book a ticket to Las Vegas, where I didn"t spend much money but enjoyed seeing people winning it. The few winners were always easy to spot; the countless losers were more like wallpaper. Hotter looked like a loser, which was 179.
why despite his bulk he was hard to notice. But then he made a mistake. He had himself paged in the hotel casino.
I"m sure he did it so people might recognise him. I recognised his name, and watched him go to the desk. Then I went to my room and packed. I could have taken him out, except no one was paying me to. Plus I"d already disposed of my armoury.
I still don"t know how he tracked me. He has a bloodhound"s nose, as well as a large pocket. So long as Walkins is paying him, I"ll have to keep moving. Either that or kill the sonofab.i.t.c.h.
What sort of a life was that to share with someone?
I found out in Vegas that my victim had been a prominent businessman from Chicago, down in Atlanta for the baseball.
In Chicago he"d been campaigning to clean up the city, to bring crooked businesses to light and reveal money laundering and bribery of public officials. In Vegas the saloon consensus was that the guy had to be crazy to take that lot on.
"You see a sign saying "Beware - Rattlesnakes", you don"t go sticking your head under the rock. Am I right or am I right?"
The drinker was right, of course, but that didn"t make me feel any better. I felt bad for a whole two hours and five cognacs, after which I didn"t feel much of anything at all.
And then Hotter had come to town, as welcome as a Bible salesman, sending me travelling again.
No, mine was definitely not a life for sharing, not even with someone like Bel.
We stuck around Glasgow long enough to rent a car. Now I was clear of London and the immediate investigation, I didn"t mind. It was another Ford Escort, white this time and without the options. Driving out of the city was not the happiest hour of my life. The centre of the city was based on the American grid system, but there were flyovers and 180.
motorways and junctions with no route signs. We found ourselves heading south, and then west, when what we wanted was north. The directions the man at the rental firm had given us proved useless, so I pulled into a petrol station and bought a map book. Although we were on the road to Greenock, we could cut over a bridge at Erskine and, with any luck, join the A82 there.
We cheered when the roadsign informed us we"d found the A82, and the drive after that was beautiful. The road took us winding along the westernmost side of Loch Lomond, Bel breaking into half-remembered songs about high roads and low roads and people wearing kilts. After Loch Lomond we stopped at Crianlarich for food, then cut west on to the A85, the country wild and windswept. It had been raining on and off since we"d crossed the border, but now it became torrential, the wind driving the rain across our vision. We hit the tip of another forbidding loch, and soon reached the coast, stopping in the middle of Oban to stretch our legs and sniff out accommodation.
There were No Vacancy signs everywhere, till we asked at a pub on the road back out of town. Bel had wanted to stay near the dockside, and I told her that was fine by me, I just hoped she"d be warm enough sleeping out of doors. When she saw our two rooms at the Claymore, though, she brightened. The woman who showed us up said there"d be a "rare" breakfast for us in the morning, which I took to mean it would be very good rather than hard to find or undercooked.
The rooms smelt of fresh paint and refurbished fittings. Bel had a view on to fields next to the pub. There were sheep in the fields and no traffic noises. It was just about perfect. The rain had even stopped.
"And I could understand every word she said," she claimed with pride, referring to our strained conversation with the car hire man in Glasgow, and the local in Crianlarich who 181.
had tried engaging Bel in conversation about, so far as either of us could make out, trout-tickling.
We ate in the bar, and asked casually if our hostess knew where Ben Gla.s.s was.
"It"s out past Diarmid"s Pillar. Hillwalkers, are you?"
"Not exactly."
She smiled. "Bemn Ghlas is a summit between Loch Nell and Loch Nant."
"That doesn"t sound what we"re looking for. It"s more of a ... commune, a religious community."
"You mean the New Agers? Yes, they"re off that way."
"You don"t know where, though?"
She shook her head. "How was the Scotch broth?"
"It was delicious," Bel said. Later, we asked if we could borrow a map of the area. Most of the roads were little more than tracks. The only Ben Gla.s.s I could see was the summit.
"I don"t suppose they"d be in the phone book?" Bel suggested.
"We could try Yellow Pages under cults."
Instead, we went back into Oban itself. It was too late in the day to start our real business, so we became tourists again. The wind had eased, and there was no more than a marrow-chilling breeze as we traipsed the harbour area and the shops which had closed for the day. Bel huddled into my side, her arm through mine. She had the collar of her jacket up, and the jacket zipped as high as it would go. There were other holidaymakers around us, but they looked used to the climate.
"Let"s go in here," Bel said, picking a pub at random. I could see straight away that it was a watering-hole for locals, and that strangers, while tolerated in the season at least, couldn"t expect a warming welcome. The customers spoke in an undertone, as though trying to keep the place a secret. Bel ignored the atmosphere, or lack of one, and asked for a couple of malts.
"Which malt?" the red-cheeked barman asked back.
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"Talisker," she said quickly, having just seen a bottle displayed in a shop window.
The barman narrowed one eye. "What proof?"
That got her. She thought he must mean proof of age.
"Seventy, I think," I said.
"And double measures," said Bel, trying to recover. As the barman stood at his row of optics, she saw there were three grades of Talisker: seventy, eighty and one-hundred proof.
She nodded at me and smiled, giving a shrug. We paid for our drinks and went to a corner table. The bar grew silent, waiting to eavesdrop. They were out of luck. The door swung in and a laughing group of teenagers stormed the place. They couldn"t be much over the legal drinking age, and a few of them might even be under it. But they had confidence on their side. Suddenly the bar was lively.
Someone put money in the jukebox, someone else started racking up for a game of pool, and the barman was kept busy pouring pints of lager.
They kept looking over at us, probably because Bel was the only woman in the bar. One of the pool players, awaiting his turn, came over and drew out a chair. He didn"t look at us, but returned to the seat after he"d played. This time he gave us the benefit of his winning grin.
"I don"t know why I bother," he said. "He beats the pants off me every time."
I watched the other pool player potting his third ball in a row. "He does seem pretty handy."
"He"s lethal. Look at him covering that pocket." He got up to play, but was quickly back in his seat. "On holiday?"
"Sort of."
"It"s all right, I don"t mind tourists. I"m a carpenter. I work for this other guy who sculpts lamps and stuff from bits of old wood. The only people who buy them are tourists."
"Maybe we"ll look in," I said. "Where"s his shop?"
"He doesn"t have a shop. He"s got a workshop, but he sells 183.
the stuff through shops in the town. Souvenir shops, fancy goods."
"We"ll look out for them," Bel said. "Meantime, could you do me a favour?"
He licked his lips and looked keen. Bel leaned across the table towards him. They looked very cosy, and his friends were beginning to exchange comments and laughter.
"We were told there"s a sort of religious commune near here."
He looked from Bel to me. I tried to look meek, harmless, touristy, but he seemed to see something more. He got to his feet slowly and walked to the pool table. He didn"t come back.
We drove into town next morning and bought a map of our own. It was newer than the hotel"s map, but still didn"t help.
We sat poring over it in a coffee shop. The other customers were all tourists, their spirits dampened by another cool, wet day. The rain was as fine as a spraymist, blowing almost horizontally across the town. Bel bought a bottle of Talisker to take back to Max.
An old van puttered past the cafe window where we were sitting. It was an antiquated Volkswagen bus, most of its body green but the pa.s.senger door blue. It squeezed into a parking place across the street and the driver cut the engine.
He got out, as did his pa.s.senger. The driver pulled open the sliding side-door, and three more pa.s.sengers emerged. They all seemed to be holding sc.r.a.ps of paper, shopping lists maybe. They pointed in different directions and headed off.
"Stay here," I said to Bel.
By the time I left the coffee shop, they had disappeared. I crossed to the Volkswagen and walked around it. It was twenty-four years old, two years older than Bel. There was a lot of rust around the wheel arches and doors, and the bodywork was generally battered, but the engine had sounded reliable enough. I looked inside. The thing was 184.
taxed for another three months. It would be interesting to see if it pa.s.sed its MOT this time round. There were some carrier bags and empty cardboard boxes in the back of the bus. The rows of seats had been removed to make more s.p.a.ce. There was a dirty rug on the floor and a spare can of petrol.
The pa.s.sengers had looked like New Agers: pony tails and roll-up cigarettes and torn jeans. They had that loose gait which hid a post-hippy sensibility. The few New Agers I"d come across were a lot tougher than their 1960s ancestors.
They were cynical, and rather than escape the system they knew how to use it to their advantage. Aesthetics apart, I had a lot of time for the ones I"d met.
"Something wrong?"
I turned. The driver was standing there, lighting a cigarette from a new packet.
"The way you were looking," he went on, "I thought maybe we had a bald tyre or something."
I smiled. "No, nothing like that."
"Maybe you"re thinking of buying?"
"That"s pretty close to the mark. I used to own one of these, haven"t seen one in a while."
"Where was this?"
"Out in the States." I hadn"t actually owned one, but the New Agers I"d met there had.
The driver nodded. "There are a lot of them still out there, on the west coast especially."
"Right," I said. "They don"t use salt on the roads."
"That"s it. They last longer than this rust-bucket." He gave the van a playful slap.
"The one I had blew up. I"d twin-carbed it."
He shook his head. "That was a mistake. You don"t live around here, do you?"
"No, why?"
"You"re talking. Not everybody does."
"You"re not a local yourself then?"
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"I haven"t lived here long."
He inhaled on his cigarette and examined its tip. He was in his 20s, nearer Bel"s age than mine. He had short wavy black hair and a week"s growth of beard, and wore liver- coloured Doc Marten boots with stained jeans and a thick woodsman"s shirt.
"I"m just visiting," I said.