The road outside the casino was still busy at that time of night. Umbrellas hid the faces of passers-by and Albert jumped when one of them stepped in close to him without warning. He looked down at a Colt Government pistol complete with sinister black silencer. Albert gaped at the weapon, then looked slowly up into the face of the man carrying it. It was the first time he had actually seen the flinty features of John Halliday and there was nothing to reassure him there.
‘We meet again, Albert,’ Halliday growled at him. ‘Though this time you have no car handy to run me over.’
Albert was already wearing a ‘surprised spaniel’ sort of expression. As the new information sank in, it became, by degrees, ‘spaniel found next to a chewed slipper’. The dazed happiness drained slowly away, leaving him feeling dizzy and slightly ill. Memories flashed at him and he made a soft, moaning sound. Was it good manners to congratulate a man on being alive when you were the one who had run him over? Albert had no idea.
‘That was an accident,’ he said, spluttering.
‘Oh, I could have believed that,’ Halliday said, leaning still closer and sticking the gun into Albert’s midriff. ‘One look at you and the words “clumsy, careless bastard ” spring to mind. But there’s more, isn’t there? I made contact with my employers and do you know what they said? Do you know what they told me?’
His voice had risen and a few passers-by glanced over at the pair of men standing against a wall. One of them raised his eyebrows for a moment before hurrying on, but that’s all you get in London, even if you run down a road naked.
Albert sighed. ‘They told you I’d been carrying on with your jobs.’ A faint hint of rebellion came into his tone, surprising them both. ‘Pretty well, too, as it happens.’
Halliday responded by jamming the gun further into Albert’s stomach, making him wince.
‘They did say that, yes. But they do not appreciate sporting amateurs in this game, Albert. I hardly had to mention it before they employed me to sort this little problem right out!’
‘I have money on me,’ Albert said, looking into Halliday’s insane eyes. ‘Enough to pay you back for the jobs I did. You could just take it and go; no one would ever know. I’m finished anyway.’
‘That’s a very decent offer, Mr Rossi. A month ago, I might have accepted a nice offer like that.’ Halliday smiled, which revealed a white glare of teeth and bleached gums that made Albert blink. ‘However, there is the little matter of evening up the scales, Albert. I believe in scales, you see, in balance. When a man runs me over, causing me a ruptured spleen and a heart attack, there has to be justice. Do you understand? I’m not here for the money. I’m not even here to make a point about bleeding amateurs. I’m here for justice.’
Now that Albert was looking for it, he saw that Halliday was not in fact in the best of health. The assassin looked very pale and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead. Halliday swayed as he stood there and he kept blinking as if he was having trouble keeping Albert Rossi in focus. For the first time, Albert thought about shoving the man away and trying to make a run for it.
What happened next happened very quickly indeed. Out of the crowd, a burly figure stepped up suddenly and dropped a heavy hand onto John Halliday’s shoulder.
‘ Right! Whatever’s going on, I’m getting to the bottom of it right now. You’re both nicked!’
It was perhaps the wrong thing to do to a man who had released himself too early from a heart ward. There was a dull thump and Halliday collapsed in a sprawl. PC George Thompson saw the gun for the first time as it clattered onto the pavement. His jaw dropped open and as he looked up he saw a wisp of smoke from a hole in Albert Rossi’s jacket. Their eyes met and, without a word, Albert folded on top of Halliday.
‘Bloody hell,’ PC Thompson said to himself, in awed wonder.
He had chosen to wear plain clothes to follow Albert Rossi, but he reached into his textured polyester coat and removed a police radio, snapping out the details of the incident over the crackle of static. In the middle of London, paramedics and police would be only a minute or two away, but PC Thompson knelt and took Halliday’s pulse anyway. The man was dead, his false teeth halfway out of his mouth. PC Thompson stared at them in confusion. Sharks weren’t in it.
When he reached Albert Rossi, he patted the man’s cheek and took his wrist, but with a sudden gasp Albert pulled it away and sat up, shaking his head groggily. His gaze took in the crouching policeman looking as if he’d seen a ghost, as well as the dead body lying next to him.
Slowly, with shaking hands, Albert Rossi opened his coat and pulled out a bundle of banknotes, tied with a gold band. His eyes widened as he saw a hole all the way through them, then he reached further to another bundle in his jacket breast pocket. There was a hole in that bundle as well, but there was also a slightly misshapen bullet.
‘Bloody hell!’ PC Thompson said again. ‘Better than body armour.’
‘I think you did me a bit of a favour there, George,’ Albert said weakly.
