Colonel Butler's Wolf

'But he doesn't know that we haven't got one.'

McLachlan frowned at him. 'What would we be doing with a gun? We're not—' He stopped abruptly, staring in dismay at Butler. 'Oh, my God!' he whispered.' You were expecting something.'

'Not expecting it, no.'

'But you know what's happening.'

'I've got a pretty shrewd idea.'

'I'll bet you have!' McLachlan said bitterly. 'And who's he after—you or Polly?'

'Could be either—or both. But in this case more likely just Polly.'

'Poor old Polly!' McLachlan looked down the road towards the Volkswagen, which lay half off the grass verge with its nose buried in the hedgerow, like some squat animal which had gone rooting for shoots and had found something so juicy that it was no longer interested in its surroundings. The girl was leaning against it, staring white-faced towards them.

McLachlan raised his hand to wave to her. The back of it was smeared with blood from a long, jagged gash along the knuckles.

'Hadn't we better do something about her?' Before Butler could answer the sound of an engine echoed across the bridge to them. McLachlan lent on his elbow and craned his neck round the edge of the parapet. Then he turned back to Butler with a faint grin on his lips.

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'Well, I never imagined an Oxford bus would come to my rescue in a tight corner,' he murmured. 'But I think this is one we really ought to catch, Colonel, sir.'

X

BUTLER BENT DOWN and peered through the grubby little window of the pantry, still listening with half an ear to the conversation coming from the kitchen behind him.

'—If only British cars had American windscreens—hold still, Dan—I want to make sure there's no glass in the wound —this wouldn't have happened.'

The back yard of Polly's cottage was hemmed in by the walls of the neighbouring houses, leaving no room for an inefficient assassin to finish the job from that direction.

'It was a German car, actually,' McLachlan said mildly. 'And I thought it stood up to that bridge pretty well. Anyway, I shall live— ouch!'

'Baby. Now go and hold it under the tap and let the water clean it.'

The front of the cottage overlooked the Village Green. There were enough people dawdling on it to discourage assassins there too.

'Polly, it's only a scratch. Or it was until I let you get at it.'

They were safe enough here until the taxi arrived, anyway.

'Go and wash it.'

McLachlan was crossing obediently towards the sink as Butler came back into the kitchen.

'Besides,' the young man continued, 'if he hadn't known how that windscreen was going to behave, then there might have been something a lot nastier waiting for us. Or for you, rather.'

Butler looked hard at McLachlan's back. If it was a guess, then it was a damn good one, even allowing for the fact that he'd said a bit more than he'd intended in the heat of the moment beside the bridge.

Something nastier. But there was still something not quite right about this situation. The KGB did not resort to violence willingly these days, but when they did they seldom made quite such a pair of balls-ups as he had encountered at Eden Hall and Millford bridge.

'Now, will someone kindly tell me what the hell's going on?' Polly regarded him accusingly. 'Someone dummy2.htm

shot at us, didn't they?'

'Twice,' said McLachlan. 'Jesus—this water's cold. Once at the windscreen and once by the bridge.'

'But why? And who?'

McLachlan dabbed at his hand with the towel, also watching Butler. 'At a guess that first shot was intended to cause a tragic accident. Would that be right, Colonel, sir?'

The boy was trying to needle him. But under the circumstances the boy had every right to needle him.

'An accident?' Polly's brow creased. 'I may be dim, but—'

'You are dim, Polly. The speed you go, if I hadn't been there to do my heroic Gaius Mucius Scaevola bit

—' he held up the injured hand.

'Dan, what on earth are you gabbing about?'

'Why, Polly, if I hadn't been there you'd have gone slam into the bridge or splat into the cutting. And if that hadn't finished you, there was a chap with a rifle to make sure.'

Polly stared at him, white faced.

'And when they found the pieces of you and your little car they wouldn't have gone looking for any bullets. No, they would have remembered you drove like a malkop, and they would have shaken their heads sadly and said: 'She had it coming to her, silly girl'.'