Brian Freemantle - See Charlie Run

Trying to avoid the castle, he said to Lu: ‘What time you going back?’

‘There’s a hydrofoil at three,’ said the other man.

‘Back where?’ intruded Irena, at once.

‘Hong Kong,’ said Charlie. ‘He’s got things to arrange.’

‘For me?’

‘Naturally.’

‘For tomorrow?’

Charlie hesitated, momentarily forgetting his hotel room lie. ‘Right,’ he said, remembering and repeating it. ‘Tomorrow.’ He had things to do, as well: link up with Cartright and contact the signals station, to discover what the Director had arranged. Most definitely too much to tramp around a bloody great castle he just knew would smell of a lot of quick pees and have walls covered with ‘John loves Jane’ graffiti records stretching back practically to the time when the Portugese fought off a Dutch take-over from its battlements.

There were protective stalls at the beginning of the steps but the huge walkway was entirely open, with no cover whatsoever, and Olga realized the other woman only needed to turn, to gain a view from the top of the promontory, to identify her.

There weren’t even enough tourists to give her cover, just an occasional straggle, groups of no more than two or three. She got behind the biggest party, five but not together, just co-incidently ascending at the same time, tensed against a new but actual collapse this time. Irena and the two men were at the entrance now but their figures were blurred, and Olga blinked against the sudden surge of faintness. Mustn’t collapse: fall down so that she would be discovered. Too close to fail.

‘There’s nothing here!’ protested Irena. She stood just inside but to the left of the enormous front wall of the church, all that remained apart from the stone-flagged floor through which weeds and even flowers were tufted.

‘It got sacked, then fell down over the years,’ said Lu, almost apologetically. He gestured towards the solitary remaining wall. ‘It’s still quite a monument: very old.’

He’d been right about the graffiti, Charlie saw: there was even a John and Jane who’d left their mark. At least, with so much openness, there wasn’t any urine smell. He agreed with Irena. There didn’t seem a lot of purpose in bothering to preserve just one wall: God — as well as Kilroy — had been here but hadn’t stayed.

They were further away than they had been on the street corner below but still very obvious from where Olga hid, tight against the slight snag of masonry that had once been the continuing right-hand wall of the surviving front. She squeezed in there from the front without having to go through the only entrance, and was glad she hadn’t tried because they were just to one side and she would again have been immediately visible, to Irena. But not here. Here she was absolutely concealed, the stone against which she was pressing her head for its coolness in front, tangled undergrowth and stunted trees at her back, shielding her perfectly from the fort. Olga took the primed pistol from its encompassing bag and laid it against the stonework, which formed a solid, unmoving support practically in line with her eye. She scrubbed her hands dry against a handkerchief this time, blinking again to clear her vision. Suddenly she was cold, no longer worried by the perspiration, and her eyes were focussed, too. The impression of enlarged detail came once more, of them all: Irena in that pink patterned suit and the scruffy man with a shoulder bag and those strange, spread-apart shoes and the neater one, European but sallow skinned, who appeared to be doing most of the talking. Olga crouched slightly, sighting. Only Irena now filling her vision, in the very centre of the V-piece, big, very big, big enough to hit: anywhere, it didn’t matter providing she was hit. There was no slack in the trigger, tight at once against her finger, and Olga blinked for the last time, surprised now the moment had come how calm she felt, knowing she could do it.

And she did.

At which precise moment Harry Lu said: ‘We might as well go,’ and turned, cupping Irena’s elbow, putting himself directly into the line of fire.

He said: ‘Oh!’ more in surprise than pain, and because there had been no sound of a shot neither the woman nor Charlie immediately realized what had happened. Lu slumped, falling against her and Irena said: ‘What the …!’ and Charlie became aware of the man falling and a lifetime’s expertise and experience made the reaction split-second instinctive.

Charlie actually managed to catch Lu, taking the weight to bring him down against the wall. As he did so Charlie saw the wound, the hole where Lu’s eye had been but wasn’t any more.

Charlie’s physical response was quite separate from his immediate thoughts.

Before Lu finally reached the ground Charlie was searching for the heartbeat, wrist first, then against the chest, confirming that there was none, but he was thinking of an excited man with a wife and a kid in a party frock planning a life in a place with a stupid name like Cockfosters and how they’d got drunk together when Edith had been alive, and that Harry Lu had been a professional and there weren’t a lot of those, not real professionals. And then he promised himself there would be the balance and that he would see to it himself, and then that lifetime of expertise and experience refused any more personal reaction, because if he were to balance the books he had to be alive to do it.

Surprisingly little blood but a bullet, obviously. But no detonation. Special then: professional. Not intended for Lu, though. Charlie snatched Irena down, reducing her as a target and also to cover the dead man from the smattering of sightseers who remained in the false-fronted church, all oblivious to what had happened. Closer, Irena saw the wound and knew the man was dead, and she said ‘Oh,’ too, a throat-tight exclamation, frightened.

Charlie couldn’t tell from which direction the shot had come but he spread himself, going away from the man he couldn’t help better to protect the woman, searching both sides for the vantage point where the assassin would be, seeing nothing. The instinct ran on, the reasoning unwinding in his mind. A professional killer who missed would try again, because he was a professional, and they were exposed like lined-up ducks at a funfair.

Charlie felt forward, gently despite the need to hurry, tilting Harry Lu’s head against the stonework to hide the gaping wound, making him a man sleeping or maybe drunk, resting.

Irena began: ‘I don’t …’ but Charlie said: ‘Shut up. Later.’

He kept her close to the wall until the door, hesitated and then bustled her through and down the wide steps, hurrying but not running, which would have attracted attention. Still lined-up ducks, but going more quickly at least; the muscles were tight, across his back and legs, tensed for the impact from a bullet that made no sound. Near the bottom he turned, one professional alert and searching for another, in automatic reaction. Nothing.

They plunged into the narrow lanes, protective but dangerous too because among the very people who provided the shield could be the man using them in the same way, to cloak his next attempt. Charlie thrust himself into the path of the cab, forcing it to stop, physically pushing Irena ahead of him and stumbling in after her, careless that the urgency might later be remembered, when the police enquiries began. He demanded the pierhead and sat back beside her, looking through the rear window for any obvious signs of pursuit but not seeing any.

‘Me?’ said Irena. She was tightly controlled, another professional after all, but the fear was there, like it had been in the exclamation at the church.

‘I don’t know,’ said Charlie honestly, because he didn’t. When the fuck was something going to make sense!