The Alamut Ambush

his every movement would be clear to them.

He looked, ahead down Bunnock Street, which stretched empty and malevolent before him. Isobel could hardly be imagining things: there was nothing else here for anyone to watch. And her dummy2

instinct for flight was simple common sense – Bunnock Street was not a place to linger in when seventy-five yards and five seconds away, beyond the curve of the terraced houses, was the safety of the main road.

He reached forward towards the ignition, but even as his fingers closed on the key a fearful thought exploded in his brain, paralysing his hand.

Underneath the lamp beside the car.

'Start the car, Hugh!'

Beside the car!

'That's interesting,' Alan had said. And he had stared at something for a split second and there had been a white, blinding flare of light . . . torn metal and flesh slapped against the floor and walls of the pit, the crack of the explosion magnified in the confined space of the underground garage, echoing still while pieces of the one-time Vanden Plas Princess bounced from the ceiling and clattered to the floor...

Roskill's fingers slowly left the key. He didn't have to look down to see that his hand was shaking — he could feel it shaking.

'What's the matter, Hugh?'

The blind moment passed, and Roskill felt cold and calm – it had been like that when the Provost had suddenly changed from a beautiful little flying machine into an uncontrollable and disintegrating piece of flying junk: the moment of panic and then the businesslike preoccupation with saving himself which was half the battle. Only believe and ye shall be saved ...

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'Somebody's moved the car, Bel,' he said gently. 'There's just a chance they might have – tampered with it.'

'How do you know?'

'I parked right nest to the lamp-post, Bel – the passenger's door couldn't be opened when I left it.'

'But I got in?'

Roskill nodded. He had been slow, almost fatally slow, sidetracked by his own thoughts and then by Isobel's fear – slow to remember the Vanden Plas Princess.

'Tampered with?' Isobel was calm now, too – beautifully and wholly Isobel, and not to be fobbed-off with half- baked explanations.

'It could be nothing. But if those chaps back there in the churchyard had anything to do with Alan, then they know how to booby-trap cars.'

It could be nothing – but to bug the car they had no need to move it. And if they had done nothing but that to it there would be very little point in hanging around to see the fireworks.

But there was no need to spell that out to Isobel.

'I see. And just what do you propose to do about it, Hugh?'

She was sitting more stiffly, but the tone of her voice was still perfectly controlled – altogether much more the experienced charity president questioning her treasurer over an adverse financial report that the female half of the illicit liaison caught sitting on something hot.

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'Well, we're safe enough so long as we don't do anything,' said Roskill. 'I doubt you came into their calculations, but just to make things look convincing I'm going to put my arm along the back of your seat and you can cuddle up to me – just to allay any fears they may have.'

Isobel moved towards him somewhat gingerly, as though he was personally wired to whatever might be under the bonnet.

'We always said we'd never do this sort of thing in public,' she murmured in his ear. 'And certainly not in this disgusting place.'

She was bloody well cooler than he was, thought Roskill until he felt for her hand and found that it was trembling.

'What sort of shoes are you wearing? Snazzy or sensible?'

'Sensible. You said we weren't going to eat at anywhere smart.'

All the better to run in, if it came to that.

'In a moment I want you to get out of the car, Bel, and walk down the street – walk, mind you – don't run unless I shout. But if I shout then start running.'

'And what will you be doing?'

'Christ – I shall be running too, and I can probably run a lot faster than you can.'

'Why can't we get out together?'

It was odds on that if the car was booby-trapped it would be the ignition that set it off. They couldn't have had time for anything much more elaborate. But it was just possible that the driver's door was rigged for a second-time opening explosion, a trick that dummy2

conveniently removed the victim from the actual place where the booby-trappers might have been seen.

'It'll confuse them, Bel. But they probably won't do anything anyway. They'll think we've had a quarrel more likely. Just walk smartly away and don't turn round – and don't worry.'

Isobel looked hard at him. 'You're not going to do anything noble, are you, Hugh?'