Jack Higgins - Angel Of Death

“And you?” he asked. “What about you?”

“Oh, I’ll go and see Rupert. His body is on display at an undertaker’s in Westminster. The funeral is tomorrow.”

“But what happens then? Ferguson and Dillon now know you’re not at the bottom of the river. They’ll hunt you down. You’ve no place to go.”

“I know, Yuri, but I don’t care anymore. Take care of yourself.”

She hung up the phone, left the cafe, and walked to her car. A few moments later she was driving to London.

Yuri Belov sat there at his desk racked by conflicting emotions. She was right, of course. There was nothing back there in Moscow but a bullet, and the trouble was he actually preferred London now. He opened a deep drawer and took out a bottle of vodka and a glass. He filled it and poured the vodka down. At that moment his phone rang again.

“Colonel Yuri Belov? Charles Ferguson here. Don’t you think it’s time you stopped playing silly buggers? Senator Keogh is alive and well, Grace Browning is on the run.”

“Yes, I know all this,” Belov said. “She’s just spoken to me.”

“Really?” Ferguson said. “Now that is interesting.”

“An extraordinary woman, but I now believe her to be truly mad,” Belov said.

“We can discuss that later. The point is, are you going to let your people ship you back to Moscow in disgrace? Not a very agreeable proposition. The crime rate there is worse than in New York now, bread queues, winter coming on and they’d very probably shoot you.”

“And what’s your alternative?”

“Come over to us. My dear chap, it would be the intelligence coup of my career to get my hands on someone like you. You’ll be well taken care of financially, we’ll find you a decent apartment, new identity.”

“Very tempting,” Belov said.

“And all you have to do is put on your coat and leave the Embassy now. Just walk out. You know the pub on the opposite side of Kensington Park Gardens?”

“Of course.”

“I’ll be there in twenty minutes. I’ll expect you.”

Belov put down the phone and poured himself another vodka. He raised his glass in a toast. “To ideals,” he said softly. “But then one must have a practical approach to life.”

He swallowed the vodka, then went to get his coat, switched off his office light, and went out.

In the booth at the pub opposite Kensington Park Gardens, Ferguson, Dillon, and Hannah Bernstein listened to Yuri Belov. The Russian finally finished.

“There it is,” he said.

Ferguson nodded. “So she said she was going to see Rupert? Well we know where that is. He’s lying in his coffin at Seaton and Sons, Undertakers, in Great George Street.”

“You actually think she’ll turn up, sir?” Hannah Bernstein asked.

“She’s nowhere else to go, Chief Inspector,” Ferguson told her. “By the way, you’d better get on to the Kent Constabulary. Tell them to check out this airfield at Coldwater.” He sighed. “Poor devils. They’re going to have another unsolved murder case on their patch.” He stood up and checked his watch. “ Seven-thirty on a nice dark, rainy London night with a touch of fog at the end of the street. It would take Dickens to do justice to it.”

Dillon said, “Are we going where I think we are?”

“Seaton and Sons, Great George Street,” Ferguson said. “I’ve always been fascinated by funeral parlors.”

Grace Browning pulled into another motorway service area as she reached London. She parked, took her suitcase, and went to the rest area for women. There was no one about and she went into a vacant stall, closed the door, and opened the suitcase. When she emerged five minutes later she was dressed as a nun again. She walked back to the car, put the case on the rear seat, and drove back onto the motorway, heading for Central London.

It was just after nine-thirty that she arrived at Great George Street in Westminster and found herself a vacant parking place at the side of the street. She sat there for a while, then reached for the black shoulder bag and opened it. She removed the AK-47 and put it in the suitcase, then she got out, the bag over her shoulder, and walked along the street, her umbrella up.

There was a uniformed policeman walking toward her and she paused and said in a soft Irish accent, “ Excuse me, officer, but I’m looking for an undertaker’s. Seaton and Sons. I believe it’s somewhere about here.”

His raincoat was wet, sparkling in the light from a street lamp. “Indeed it is, Sister. Just over the road on the right. You can see the light over the door.”

“Thank you,” she said and crossed the road. He watched her go, then turned and carried on.

She found the door, the name Seaton and Sons etched in acid on the glass, paused, then tried the handle and went in.

There was the all-pervading smell of flowers peculiar to funeral parlors. She walked forward and found a small glass office, an old white-haired man in a dark blue uniform dozing on a chair. She put her umbrella down and tapped on the window and he sat up with a start.

He got to his feet and opened the door. “I’m sorry, Sister, how can I help you?”

“Mr. Rupert Lang,” she said.

“Ah, yes, we put Mr. Lang in the main parlor. We’ve had visitors most of the afternoon. Let me show you.”

He led the way along a dark corridor, doors open, and inside she could see coffins banked with flowers.

“These are our normal chapels of rest,” he said. “But Mr. Lang being a special case, he was put in the main parlor. As I said, we’ve had a lot of visitors to see him. There were three gentlemen and a lady a little while ago, but they must have gone.”

He opened the door and led her into a large room. It was a place of shadows, just a little subdued lighting, flowers banked everywhere and the coffin at the far end on a plinth.

“I’ll leave you now, Sister.” He closed the door and went away.

She stood beside the coffin and looked down. Only Rupert Lang’s head and shoulders showed. He wore a navy-blue suit and a Guards tie. His face was very calm, not Rupert at all, more like a wax mask.

“My poor Rupert,” she said aloud. “I let you down, I’m afraid. It all went wrong,” and she leaned over the coffin and kissed the cold mouth.

There was a movement at the other end of the room and as she turned, Ferguson, Dillon, Hannah Bernstein, and Yuri Belov moved out of the shadows.

“We’ve been waiting for you, Miss Browning,” Charles Ferguson said.

She looked at them and smiled. “So you made your choice, Yuri?”

“No option, Grace,” he told her.

“And now what?” She smiled again, at Hannah Bernstein this time. “Now you really do get a chance to read me my rights, Chief Inspector.”

“I’m afraid so,” Hannah said.

Grace Browning reached into her shoulder bag and took out the Beretta. She worked the slider and Hannah pulled a Walther from her bag and did the same.

“Please, Miss Browning, be sensible.”

It was Sean Dillon who took two paces toward her. “This isn’t Stage Six at MGM, Grace, it’s for real. It’s not a script any longer.”

“Oh, yes it is – it’s my script.”

Her hand came up and she took deliberate aim at him. Hannah Bernstein fired twice very fast and Grace Browning was thrown back against the plinth on which the coffin stood and slid to the floor.

“Oh, my God!” Belov said and Dillon knelt beside her.

Hannah Bernstein stood there holding the gun at her side, totally shocked. “Is she dead?”

“With two in the heart she would be,” Dillon told her and picked up the Beretta. Suddenly there was a frown on his face. He examined the gun and worked the slider, then he held it up. “Empty.”