Conn Iggulden - Quantum of tweed

Albert Rossi would be the first to tell you that breaking into the world of professional assassination is no easy task. In almost any job, you are allowed to make the odd mistake, with red faces all round and perhaps a new office nickname. Not so with hit men. If assassins had a theme tune, it would be something solemn and deeply dignified. Adagio in G minor, perhaps. Soft rock would not be appropriate for such a serious business. Bonnie Tyler would not do at all.

It might have helped if Albert had spent his earlier years in the army, becoming a grim and, yes, somewhat suave dealer in death. He did not do this, however, because Albert Rossi was a late starter. Up to the age of forty-nine, his life had proceeded in an aimless fashion, much like the windows of his beloved menswear shop in Eastcote, Middlesex. Things changed, but things also stayed very much the same. Sadly, his debt to the bank rose every year.

Albert’s life took a lurch onto a new path when he was driving home one Monday afternoon. The bank had taken to writing rather unpleasant letters to him and adding?30 to his overdraft for each one. He had tried replying. He had even tried charging them for his own letters. To his horror, this seemed only to encourage them. Lately, he had begun to receive statements with a red border and the word ‘bailiff’ around line three. Perhaps he was distracted that Monday. The threat of bailiffs will do that to a man.

His car, a Nissan Micra, was also not appropriate for an assassin, but in fairness it was fantastically appropriate for the owner of a men’s clothing shop. He may have been listening to Bonnie Tyler, but moments of immense stress often blur details. To this day he cannot remember why he shudders whenever he hears ‘Total Eclipse of the Heart’.

The first he knew of his career change was when a small man wearing a poorly cut suit and smart black shoes ran out in front of him. The brakes of the car were excellent, but as Albert panicked, he locked the wheels and skidded. At the moment of impact, the little man popped into the air, so quickly and completely that at first Albert dared to hope it hadn’t happened at all. To his horror, he saw a smartly shoed foot sliding into view at the top of his windscreen. The little man had ended up on the roof.

In the stunned moment that followed, Albert swallowed nervously. With trembling hands, he turned off the radio — rather than have Bonnie Tyler belt her way through a chorus that could only be slightly sinister in the circumstances. The silence was eerie. The sort of silence that is interrupted by a dead man sliding into view can never be the ‘nuns in a reading room’ kind. ‘Eerie’ is very much it for the slight squeak of a size-nine brogue on your windshield. It did not help that Albert recognised the brand of socks as one he had marked down to 40 per cent of its full price.

The road was empty, though suburban houses seemed to press in on all sides. There had been the squeal of brakes and the thump. Surely the windows would be positively filling with Girl Guides and Miss Marples, noting his number plate and groping for the phone. As Albert stepped out, he was tempted to just push the little fellow off and make a dash for freedom. A man who can sell a jumper with suede strips on the front is made of sterner stuff than that, however.

Albert took hold of a wrist and tried not to look at the rest of the man as he felt for his pulse. There wasn’t one. He checked his own wrist for the right spot and couldn’t find one there either. It’s a lot harder to do than your average medical drama makes it look.

Focusing on the task, Albert did not hear the stranger approach. He felt something poke at his kidneys. Was he being mugged? Honestly, whoever it was could not have chosen a worse time.

‘Don’t turn round,’ came a deep voice in his ear. ‘Just tell me the name of the man you ran over.’

Albert wondered if he had struck his own head in the accident. Had the air bags gone off? Was it possible not to notice an air bag going off? He made a strangled sound as he tried to peer into the Nissan Micra without moving his head.

‘His name,’ the voice went on. ‘Just that.’

There was a delicate scent of male aftershave in the air, Albert noted dimly. Unlike the voice and his entire day up to that point, it was actually quite nice.

‘I… I hit him with my car!’ Albert said. ‘I didn’t have time to ask him!’

‘You expect me to believe it was an accident? You don’t know who this is?’

‘Look, I’m truly sorry. I was driving along Hawthorn Avenue and…’

To his amazement, the man at his ear chuckled.

‘Relax, Mr Dangerous Driver. I didn’t really think you were a professional. It was so neat, that’s all. I was lining up my shot… Don’t turn round!’

Albert froze all over again. The fact that he was being poked by an actual gun was too much to take in. Could he hear sirens in the distance? No chance. That was another part of real life that the medical dramas had not represented accurately.

On the television, the police were always in the next road, ready to fire up the sirens and arrive in seconds with screeching cars. That did not seem to be the case in Hawthorn Avenue, Eastcote. Albert thought he would be dead on the side of the road by the time the police eventually turned up. He suspected his own expression would be one of total bafflement.

‘Look, the police are on their way,’ he said, in the complete absence of proof. ‘I’m sorry if I made you angry…’

‘Angry?’ The man chortled. He was very jolly for someone in what Albert was beginning to realise was probably not a jolly profession. ‘You saved me a job. I wouldn’t have bothered with an alibi if I’d known you were going to come along and flatten my target for me.’

Albert suspected he was going into shock. He wasn’t certain what this entailed, but he was feeling light-headed and faintly nauseous, which probably fitted the bill. He wondered how an assassin would react to having someone throw up on their shoes.

‘Will you kill me now?’ Albert asked.

‘Not for free, old son. You haven’t seen my face and you did do me a favour.’

‘I could… just drive away, in fact?’ Albert said, almost pleading. There was silence for a moment.

‘If you sneak a single look at me, I’ll take it badly, understand? Your number plate is on the road, so I can always find you.’

Albert felt the pressure on his kidneys vanish and he opened the car door with shaking hands. He couldn’t look at the body again. Presumably, it would fall off when he built up a respectable speed.

The second important event of that day occurred as Albert tried to start his car and put it into reverse gear whilst looking determinedly out of the back window. Perhaps it was fate that led him to accidentally select first gear and run his second man down that morning. The Micra leapt forward eagerly, bumping once, then twice.

Albert gave a cry of appalled despair. He would have driven off if he hadn’t remembered his number plate on the road. A black mobile phone was spinning by his front tyre. Next to it was a pistol, complete with silencer. Albert snatched them all up, crunched the car into reverse and then he was off, back down Hawthorn Avenue, leaving the dead behind.

The police did arrive, in the end. They had received reports of a hit-and-run from a retired teacher named Miss Morrison and one Girl Guide who was home sick from school. The missing number plate had foxed them all, however. Though Albert spent the night waiting for a knock on the door, it did not come. What did come was a call on the new mobile from Stephen Hawking, or someone who sounded very much like him.