Bleeding Hearts Part 4

It bothered me. I hate to get involved. I hate to know. But this time there might be no other way. I might have to find out why I'd been paid to a.s.sa.s.sinate Eleanor Ricks. I'd seen the papers and the news. It was in my favour that the authorities were baffled. They still didn't know who my target had been. But I knew, right down to her name and the details of her dress. The diplomat had been there by pure chance, though not the politician. Whoever had known Eleanor Ricks would be coming out of the hotel at six knew her very well. So they almost certainly also knew the politician would be with her. Was I scaring off the politician?

Was I sending a message?

Maybe you begin to see why I don't like getting involved.

I didn't rush my journey. I wanted my arrival to surprise Max. If I turned up straight away, he would probably be less surprised. But I broke my journey quite near him in 47.Yorkshire, so I could walk in on him early the following morning. Max was a careful man, but he didn't go armed to the breakfast table. He was also surrounded by fields and hills. No one would hear a shot, no one would hear a burial.

No one except Belinda.

I booked into a small hotel, wearing my cap at the reception desk. Then I went out and had a haircut, quite a severe one.

'You sure about this?' the barber asked.

'I'm sure,' I said. 'It's for the summer. Gets too hot otherwise.'

'True enough,' he said, picking up the scissors.

I wore the cap again on my way back to my room, then washed my hair and used some of the dye I'd bought on it, turning it from dark brown to inky black. I looked at my eyebrows too, but reckoned I could get away with not dyeing them. The cropped hair didn't take long to dry. The cut on my forehead was healing quickly, though there was still bruising around the scab.

I unpacked my bag. I'd bought some new clothes at the shopping centre and ditched the ones I'd worn for the hit.

This wasn't a special precaution: I always wear cheap clothes on a hit, then discard them afterwards. If you've used a gun, forensic scientists will find traces of the primer compound on your hands and clothes. Incredible, isn't it?

When I tell Max these things, he doesn't believe me. He says they make it all up to scare people off using guns. Maybe he's got a point. In the bag I also had my standby, a .357 Magnum, not bought from Max this time but from a friend in France. It was a Colt copy, and not a very good one. On the firing range, it seemed to want to aim everywhere but at the bull. Its saving grace was that, like all revolvers, it scared people. That was its job. I didn't think it would scare Max; nevertheless, I wanted him to know I was armed.

There wasn't much else in the bag except for a manila envelope, a few bottles of fine white powder, some larger 48.bottles of sterilised ps of disposable syrlnges,1 b pt them in the bag, ever since a hotel maid had spotted y bathroom and informed the manager that I wag y ,m. Poor girl, she d been so enA. afterwards. But I'd left her a tip anyway.

I lay on my bed,. g through what was left ofmy .g e cat with the other.

The cat belonged t in the lobby on amvaland made clicking noise to attract it.

Don t bother, thg y onisthad said. -Geronimo's very timid.

Maybe, but I ha y Geronimo had padded ""y to Ir room unsummoned, and had miaowed at the door until I ky ed himself round my legs a fe, y bed his jaw along my proffered knuckles, g on me. I didn't have anytmng for him t< ut="" he="" forgave="" me.="" so="" we="" lay,="" the="" pair="" of="" us,="" our="" eyes="" somewhere="" between="" thought="" and="" nothingness,="" until="" 1="" own="" to="" the="" bar="" for="" some="">

Back in " roorr having drunk an indifferent half-bottle 0 Montrachet'l PW the manila envelope. This contained all the details of everything my employer had wanted me to know g 3 forensic scientist or a descen Hs, but I could tell the stapled sheets processed. The print quality was pg self nice and regular. The paper watermark. There was no handwriting here; even the envelope had been T A nit said w -Private & Confidential'.

I read through the formation again, searching for clues to my employer's iy , pto of the target, too. It was a head oulders shot. She was smiling, her dtlppe to one side so the hair fell and rested on her shoulder. It looked professional job, a publicity shot. For a start, it y ite, and how many 49.people use monochrome film these days? Plus it was obviously posed, definitely not a snapshot.

Who would have access to publicity shots? The photographer of course, plus the model. The model's employers, and probably members of her immediate family ... plus fans, the housekeeper, and anyone who happened to s.n.a.t.c.h one off a desk. I wasn't exactly narrowing things down.

I've said I don't like knowing about my targets, but my employer this time had sent me a lot of information, much of it extraneous. The amount of background they knew, they had to be close to the target. I mean, this wasn't the sort of stuff you could glean from press cuttings alone. They had to have known her pretty d.a.m.ned well. Either that or they'd been extremely thorough in their research.

None of which explained how they'd known the sorts of colours she'd be wearing on the day. I was back to family and the people she worked with. I had the idea I was going to have to go back to London and do some digging ... but that would all depend on what Max had to say.

I settled my bill that night, since in the morning I intended starting off before breakfast. But the manageress wouldn't hear of this, and was up at six to cook me bacon and scrambled eggs and boil some tea. She even sat with me as I ate, though I'd have preferred to be alone.

'Long drive ahead of you?'

'Not really. Just a busy day.'

'I know all about that, sweetie.'

I smiled, but doubted this. As I left, Geronimo came out to the car with me, but then caught the scent of something better and trotted away. There was a heavy dew on the car, and the morning was raw, with cloud low and thick in the valleys and the roads wet. But the XR3i started at the first turn of the ignition. I had the .357 on the pa.s.senger seat, covered with the local freesheet which I'd picked up in the 50.bar last night. As I drove off, I knew I had a long walk ahead.

Max's house sat in nine acres of moorland, the monotony broken only by the dry-stone d.y.k.es which divided the land into unused enclosures. The d.y.k.es had been built to give local employment during the hardest years of the 1920s.

They were never intended to be put to any use. Max used those nearest his house as firing ranges, and had converted a long Dutch-style barn into an indoor range. The rest of the farm buildings had either been knocked down or left to fall in their own good time. Piles of rocks dotted what had been the farmyard. Max had graded them into large, middling and small, for no good reason that I could see. But then he was always methodical, even with debris.

I stopped the car about a mile from the house and left it on the gra.s.s verge, then climbed over one of the walls and started walking. The gra.s.s was wet underfoot, and I wished I'd bought some boots. But better this than driving up to the house. You could hear a car from hundreds of yards away.

Though I could see the house, I knew the kitchen faced on to the interior farmyard, not out over the moors. I counted fewer than a dozen trees in the whole expanse, and wondered how Bel could live here.

I'd pushed the Magnum into my trouser waistband, but the ground was so uneven I transferred it to my jacket pocket. I kept a hand on it as I walked. I'd noticed in the car that brown spots of rust were appearing on the barrel. That was the problem with a cheap gun, it wasn't worth the maintenance.

Halfway across the first field, I stopped dead. I didn't know if I was ready for this. It was a long time since I'd used a handgun, even as a means of threat. Besides, if Max didn't have anything to do with it, I had a favour to ask of him ...

and of Bel.

Max no longer kept a dog. He thought animals belonged in the wild. There were no pets at all on the farm, though 5i Bel was soppy about cats and dogs and horses. Everything was quiet as I clambered over the last wall on to the track. If Max kept to his regular schedule, he'd be in the kitchen just now, probably eating something macrobiotic. He was on a weird diet which he swore was keeping the cancer at bay. I walked around the side of the house and peered round the wall. The farmyard was silent. I could see Max's Volvo estate parked in the barn, and behind it one of the human-shaped targets belonging to the indoor range. I took the Magnum from my pocket and walked to the kitchen door, turning the handle.

The kitchen had been gutted and redone about a year ago. It was all gleaming white tile and white units. Kept fanatically clean, it reminded me more of a hospital lab than a kitchen. And at its centre, seated at a foldaway table, was Max. He was already dressed and had strapped his mask across his maimed cheek and jaw. He was'trying to eat something brown and sludgy with a teaspoon, and listening to the 'Today' programme on Radio Four.

'I wondered when you'd get here,' he said, not looking up.

He had one hand on his bowl, the other holding his spoon.

He was showing me both hands so I wouldn't get nervous. I wasn't aiming the gun. It was hanging almost casually from my hand. 'Want some breakfast?'

'You don't sound surprised to see me, Max.'

Now he looked up at me. 'That's some serious haircut, boy. Of course I'm not surprised. I heard what happened.

They said the police were on the scene just too late to stop the shooting. I knew what you'd think.'

'What would I think, Max?' I leaned against the sink, keeping my distance.

'Do you want some breakfast?'

'I've had some, thanks.'

Tea?'

'All right.' He got up to fetch a mug from the rack. 'You haven't answered my question.'

52.'That's because it's a stupid question. I was waiting for you to come up with a cleverer one.' He shuffled back to the table with the mug. 'Sit down, why don't you? And put away that b.l.o.o.d.y awful revolver. It embarra.s.ses me having to look at it. b.l.o.o.d.y cheap Asian copy, you'd probably miss me even at six feet. How far out of alignment is it?'

'About half an inch at twenty yards.'

Max wrinkled his nose. 'And it's rusting. If you tried popping me with that, I'd more likely die of shame than anything.'

I smiled, but didn't put the gun away. Max sighed.

'If not for me, then for Bel.'

'Where is she?'

'Sound asleep in her bed, lazy sow. Here, do you want this tea?'

I took the mug from the table and placed it on the draining board, leaning against the sink again.

'So,' said Max, 'someone knew you were doing the hit, and they tipped off the police. Stands to reason it must have been me or whoever was paying you in the first place.' I nodded. He looked up at me again. 'Well, it wasn't me. I don't blame you for being cagey, but it wasn't. So all I can do is tell you how the job came about; A man. phoned me, a greaseball called Scotty Shattuck. Do you know him?' I shook my head. 'He was regular Army, but got a fright or something in the Falklands. Collected a few ears as souvenirs, and when the Army found out they dumped him back into society. He's tried his hand at mercenary work since, trained some of the fighters in Sarajevo. He doesn't have much of a rep, spends more time bouncing for night clubs than doing short-arms practice.'

'Where does he live?'

'Don't rush me. Mark. Shattuck said he had a client who was interested in having a job done. What he meant was someone had slipped him a few quid to find an a.s.sa.s.sin.'

'Why didn't he just take the job himself?'

53.'Maybe he pitched for it but the client knew his rep.

Anyway, I said I'd need a few details, and we met in Leeds.

He handed over a sealed envelope, giving me the gen I gave to you when I phoned you.'

'How much did he know about the hit?'

Max shrugged. 'The envelopes weren't tampered with, but he could always have torn open the original envelopes, read the gen for himself, and put it in a fresh envelope after.'

'Would he be curious enough to do that?'

'I don't know, maybe. Shattuck would like to play with the big boys. He seemed to think I was some sort of pimp with a stable of snipers, asked if I'd give him a trial. I told him to behave. And he did behave, too, except when payment time came.'

'Yes?'

'At our final meet, again in Leeds, he handed over the case; The final details were there, but the cash was short.

Two hundred short. He said it was his cut. I told him that was fine by me, but the person the money was going to wouldn't be pleased. I asked him if two hundred was worth having to look over his shoulder the rest of his life and not go near windows.'

I grinned. 'What did he say?'

'He didn't say anything, he just sort of twitched and sweated. Then he took the money out of his pocket and handed it over.' Talking was thirsty work for Max. He had a straw in his mug of tea and took a long suck on it.

'So where can I find him, Max?'

'I don't know.'

'Come on, you must know.'

'I never needed to know. It was always him that contacted me.'

I raised the gun ever so slightly. 'Max,' I said. I didn't bother saying anything else.. I was too busy looking at the kitchen doorway, the one leading to the hall and the rest of 54.the house. Bel was standing there. She was wearing a short nightdress, showing very nice legs.

She was also pointing a shotgun at me.

'I know how to use it. Mark. Put away the gun.'

I didn't move. 'Let's get one thing straight,' I said. 'If you're going to be working for me, my name's not Mark Wesley any more. It's Michael Weston.'

Max leapt from his chair.

'Jesus, Bel! That's a Churchill Premier}' He ran to the doorway and took the shotgun from her. 'Do you know how much one of these is worth?'

'About ten grand,' she said.

'Ten grand is right. Less if it's been fired.' He broke open the barrels to show that Bel hadn't bothered loading the thing. I put my Magnum down on the draining board.

'Look,' said Max, 'let's all calm down. I'll tell you what I can about Shattuck, Mark.'

'Michael.'

'Okay, Michael. I'll tell you what I can. But let's sit down.

All this Gunfight at the OK Corral stuff makes me nervous, especially in the kitchen. Do you know how long it took me to do this tiling?'

So Max put the kettle on and we sat down. Bel gave me a lopsided smile, and I winked back at her.

'Black suits you,' she said, meaning my hair. 'Even if that haircut does make you look like a copper.' She touched my foot with her own under the table. We'd played this game before, enjoying the fact of having a secret from Max. I tried to remember that only a few minutes ago, she'd been aiming a shotgun at me, albeit unloaded. Bel had the face of a sixth- form schoolgirl, but I knew there was much more to her than that.

'Sorry,' I said, 'I haven't brought you a souvenir this trip.'

She attempted a pout. 'I'm hurt.'

I put my hand in my pocket and pulled out the hat I'd bought. 'Unless you want this.'

55.She took it from me and looked at it. 'Gee, thanks,' she said, her voice heavy with irony. 'I'll keep it under my pillow.'

Max was ma.s.saging his jaw. Usually he didn't say much, understandably. He'd said more in the past twenty minutes than he would over the course of a normal day.

'What was that about me working for you?' Bel asked, folding her arms.

'More properly, working with me.' I was looking at Max as I spoke. 'I'm going to have to go back to London, there are questions I need to ask. I'd look less conspicuous with a partner. Plus maybe there are some people I can't talk to myself. But Bel could talk to them.'

'No,' Max said.

'I pay well, and I'd look after her. I'd play it straight. First sign of danger, I zoom back up here with her.'

'What am I, a ventriloquist's dummy?' Bel had risen from the table and was standing with hands on hips. 'Why not ask me yourself? You sound like you're asking to borrow a car or a bike, not a person.'