Gerald Seymour - Condition black

Erlich heard the front door opened.

He listened.

"Hello, darling."

"You're pissed."

"Good cause, darling."

"Always a good cause."

"Blame the D. – G. "

"Come the other one."

"Honest, darling, he had me in, really. He had me in, he poured me a killer."

The softening in Penny Rutherford's voice, anxiety. "Are you in trouble?"

" Y o u don't get half pints of Scotch if you're in trouble."

"What did he want?"

" Y o u won't believe it…"

" T r y me."

" H e wanted to talk about Buffalo Bill…"

Erlich heard the relief of her laughter.

"Who?'

" Y o u know, chap in your bath, Erlich."

"What did you tell him?"

Erlich heard the bright chime of Penny Rutherford's giggle.

"I said that he was impetuous, more. I said he was too scholarly for the Service, too poetical, really, and anyway, I said, you turn your back on him for the length of a cornflake and he's in the bath with your wife. No, I black-balled him, ha! ha! ha!"

"Come on in, before you fall down."

Penny led. She had the mischief in her eyes. Erlich thought that Rutherford would be struggling out of his coat, and there was the thudding of his overnight bag onto the polished floorboards in the hall. She was beautiful, and the mischief in her was explosive.

Rutherford came in.

Rutherford stopped.

"Oh, Christ… "

"Evening, James," Erlich said.

"What the hell are you doing here?"

Erlich said, quiet and easy with a bit of a drawl like he came from cattle country, "I came to take a bath."

"Come on, you two. We'll watch James have his supper. I think you've had enough to drink, darling. Go and sit down and I'll heat it. Bill, catch him if he looks like falling."

Rutherford stood straight. He stood like he was on parade. He even straightened his tie.

"Apart from the bath…?"

"I was bringing back your laundry, for which, again, thanks."

"Ah, yes, the laundry… I hope they haven't used starch on my shirt," Rutherford said. "The rest of it is fixed, by the by.

We're given carte blanche to track down Colt. This is my full-time priority. No more side-shows, you'll work alongside me because that's the way you'll get to Colt…"

Somewhat later, they both kissed Penny Rutherford goodnight, and slipped out through the front door into the street.

Rutherford let him drive. When he wasn't dozing, when he wasn't giving the directions for the turn off the M3 onto the A303 and the right-hand fork at Stonehenge, he thought of Penny.

That was the trouble, too much thinking about Penny, not enough time to do anything about Penny. Pretty Penny, the wife left at home. .. Bedrock of Curzon Street, the wives that were left at home. On his floor, in the D Branch, he knew of four men who had moved out of their suburban houses that year, and exchanged their own homes for an inner London bedsit, bachelor apartment, studio, or whatever… She could have warned him, she could have whispered and pointed to the sitting room door Perhaps it was her bit of fun, pretty Penny little laugh, to let him lead with his big foot. Actually, all jokes aside, they were washed up. All the excuses could be tripped off, But, no, she hadn't warned him because she hadn't given a toss that he had made a rude bore of himself. He just thanked his stars he hadn't given away the true gist of it. The hair rose on his neck at the thought of it. Still, some comfort there. Tight as an owl and still a good Service man. A good Service man and a piss-awful husband. Go on the way they were heading and he'd be for the bachelor flat in no time, sure.

They both pretended to be asleep, and they were both awake.

Midnight chimed on the clock downstairs in the living room.

Sara knew the problem was new. He had slept after the last session with the bank manager, and he had slept after he had come back from being held by the Establishment police. He had played Scrabble with them, and he had made sure that it was always either Frank or Adam who won. He had been like any other parent. He had been like the fathers she saw at the school gate meeting their kids. Beside her, he twisted and turned.

She reached to touch his shoulder, felt him start away from her.

"What is it, Frederick? What's happened?"

It flew from him in a torrent.

"Whatever I've done is for you and for the boys. Whatever I am going to do, is only for you and for Adam and Frank. Only for you, only for them. Whatever I've done, whatever I'm going to do, don't listen to anyone. It's only for you… " And then nothing more.

Her questions rebounded from his angular shoulder.

The car was where it had been the last time, in the driveway of the policeman's house, left in front of his darkened windows.

This night there was more light, half a moon and broken quick moving cloud, and they had skirted the village and come to the wood from the east side.

He heard the crushing of the dead leaves.

He lay in the wood loam. He was using his bivouac as his groundsheet. There was a big wind up high. but where he was the trees shielded him from the cold. There wern't trees heaving, not this night. He hadn't heard the collapse ol a lulling branch.

It wasn't a branch, broken off, that had crushed the leaves.

Rutherford was off to his left, beyond reach IFrom where he was, Rutherford could see the front gate of the Manor House, and could look over the outbuildings of the place, what had once been the pony and trap sheds, right to the front gate. Erlich watched the light on the stair window and he could see the kitchen door.

There was a light on in the empty kitchen

He heard the cracking of a twig.

He heard a soft, dried-breath throat growl

Fast, sudden movement. The weight buckled down onto Erlich. The blow of the weight onto his shoulder, and his back.

The stab of pain at his neck. Groping lot the holsiter. The weight was on his back and heaving down on the fist that scrabbles for the handle of the Smith and Wesson. The throbbing roar in his ears, and the torn hurt in his skin. Hand on the gun, the gun clear, twisting and rolling. The weight and the pain following him as he twisted, rolled. The gun put. The gun pressed against his chest. Foul breath spilling at his lace. The growl roar, and the weight, and the pain.

He fired…

Kept firing…

Erlich kept firing until there was no more noise, until the weight was gone, through the six slugs in the Smith and Wesson chamber, and on round, until there was just the sound of the hammer hitting dead cartridge heads.

Rutherford was above him, and Rutherford's torch played over the tree branches and roots around him, and over the bramble undergrowth. Rutherford asked if he were all right. He heard the concern in Rutherford's voice. Yes, he was O.K. There was pain in the hack of his neck, and the breath had been sucked clean out of his lungs by the weight, and his ears were blasted from the deep throat growl and the hammered gunfire, Bit he was O.K. The torch wavered, came close to him. The torch found it. God, the bastard was huge. Laid out, it's full length stretched, and there was blood at its mouth, blood on its teeth.

He'd only once seen a bigger German Shepherd, half pulling a warden over, at the Federal gaol at Marion, Illinois. There was a head shot and there was a chest shot, and there was a shot that looked to have broken the dog's right rear leg.

They heard the advancing footfall. There was no attempt at concealment. The footfall drove without hesitation through the undergrowth, from the depth of the wood. Goddam fingers shaking. Revolver up, cylinder out, palm of the hand belting the barrel to shake the spent cases clear. The footfall closing on them.

Prising the new cartridges into the chamber.

The torch picked her out. There was her dirt-smeared oil jacket, the jeans and the big boots. There was the rich red flame of her hair. Erlich went to the crouch and to the aim. He could see that she carried no weapon, but he went to the crouch and the aim and his right index finger was crooked level with the trigger. Rutherford held her in the beam of his torch. She never slowed. She seemed to see through the power of the beam that dazzled her. Erlich remembered, too damn well, the beating and the kicking. He remembered his own screams. He remembered the smell of her, when she was a foot from him as he crouched and aimed. She never looked at him.