those could be pinned on the criminals and none related to the most serious crimes.
He still needed positive proof of wrong-doing, Or, since he was apparently the next person to be done wrong to, positive proof of the intention to do wrong might be preferable. He decided to follow the bald man in the hope of catching him red-handed. (The details of how he would himself catch red-handed someone whose criminal mission was to eliminate him he left for the time being. They would supply themselves when the occasion arose.)
He counted his advantages and there weren’t many. First, he knew they were after him, so he was on his guard. Secondly, he was in disguise and so could spy on them without automatic discovery. Not much, but better than nothing.
At about five past ten the bald man came out of the hotel. He walked without suspicion, no furtive glances to left and right. Charles had the advantage of hunting the hunter.
The bald man was an ideal candidate for tailing. He walked straight ahead at a brisk pace, not stopping to look in shop windows or dawdling aimlessly. All Charles had to do was to adjust his own pace to match and follow along about fifty yards behind. Brighton was full of shoppers and the pursuit was not conspicuous.
It soon became clear that the man was going to the railway station. He walked briskly and easily up the hill, fitter than his appearance suggested. Charles thought uncomfortably of the strength he had seen in middle-aged wrestlers on the television. If it came to direct physical confrontation, he didn’t reckon much for his chances.
The man didn’t stop to buy a ticket. He must have a return, because he showed something at the barrier. He went on to Platform 4, for trains to London. At first Charles was going to buy a single, but that showed a depressing lack of faith in the outcome of his mission, so he got a return.
He also bought a Times for burying his face in. Tabloid newspapers, he decided, must be unpopular with the criminal fraternity; they hide less.
The train came soon, which implied that the bald man knew the times and was hurrying for this specific one. Charles began an irrelevant conjecture about the idea of the commuting assassin, always catching the same train. ‘Had a good day at work, dear?’ ‘Oh, not too bad. Had a bit of trouble with one chap. Had to use two bullets. Still, always the same on a Friday, isn’t it?’ But the situation was too tense for that sort of fantasy.
The assassin got into an open-plan carriage, which was ideal. Charles went into the same one by another door and positioned himself in a seat from which he could see the man’s leg and so would not miss any movement. He opened The Times, but his eyes slipped over the words without engaging or taking them in. He turned to the crossword on the principle that mental games might take his mind off the icy trickling in his stomach.
‘I know that death has ten — several doors / For men to take their exits — Webster (8).’ The fact that he recognised the quotation from The Duchess of Malfi and could fill in the word ‘thousand’ gave him small comfort.
He felt ill, on the verge of violent diarrhoea. He could still see the man’s leg round the edges of the seats. It didn’t move, but it mesmerised him. He tried to imagine the mind that owned the leg and the thoughts that were going through it. Was the man coolly comparing methods of killing, trying to come up with another crime that could look like an accident? Had his paymaster given him a deadline by which to get Charles Paris? The word ‘deadline’ was not a happy choice.
Come to that, if his quarry was supposed to be in Brighton, why was he going to London anyway? Charles’ fevered mind provided all kinds of unpleasant reasons. There was some particularly vicious piece of killing equipment that had to be bought in London. Or the job was going to be subcontracted and the bald man was on his way to brief another hit-man with the details. Even less attractive solutions also presented themselves.
The pressure on his bowels was becoming unbearable. He’d have to go along to the toilet at the end of the carriage.
That meant going past the bald man. Still, it might be useful to get a closer look. Charles walked past. The man did not look up.
His reading matter was unlikely for a hired killer. The Listener was open on his lap and a New Scientist lay on the seat beside him. Obviously a new class of person was turning to crime. Presumably in times of rising unemployment, with a glut of graduates and a large number of middle-aged redundancies, the criminal social pattern was changing.
Charles felt a bit better after he had used the lavatory, but the face that stared at him from the stained mirror as he washed his hands was not a happy one.
The Alfred Bostock disguise made him look seedier than ever. The pebble glasses perched incongruously on the end of his nose (the only position in which they enabled him to see anything). The make-up on his jowl looked streaked and dirty. The bright tie mocked him. What was he doing? He was forty-eight, too old for this sort of masquerade. What was he going to do when he got to London? He couldn’t spend the rest of his life following the bald-headed man. The confidence that he would know what to do when the, occasion arose was beginning to dissipate.
The journey to Victoria took just over an hour and during that time the assassin sat quietly reading The Listener. Charles supposed that one would have to relax and behave normally in that line of work or go mad. ‘His own Times lay unread on his knee and no subsequent crossword clues were filled in.
At Victoria the man got out and gave in his ticket at the barrier. Charles tried a little detective logic. If the man had a return ticket and yet was carrying no luggage except his newspapers, it was possible that he had started from London that morning, gone down to Brighton just to get his instructions and was now returning to base. This deduction was immediately followed by the question, ‘So what?’
The bald man walked purposefully to the Underground with Charles in tow. He bought a 15p ticket from the machine and Charles did likewise. The man went on to the platform for the Victoria Line northbound. Charles followed.
They travelled in the same compartment to Oxford Circus. The bald man was now deep into his New Scientist, apparently unsuspicious.
He climbed out of the Underground station and walked along Upper Regent Street into Portland Place. He walked on the left, the British Council side rather than the Broadcasting House one. His pace was still even. Nothing in his behaviour betrayed any suspicion. And equally nothing in his behaviour would make any passer-by think of him as anything but a professional businessman on his way to work.
He turned left at New Cavendish Street, then right up Wimpole Street and left on to Devonshire Street. After two hours of tailing, Charles was becoming mesmerised and he almost overshot the man when he stopped.
Though they were only feet apart, the bald man still did not notice his pursuer. He walked in through the yellow-painted front door of a white Georgian house.
Charles, in a panic over nearly bumping into his quarry, walked on a little so as not to make his behaviour too obvious, then turned back and walked slowly past the house. It was expensive. Net curtains prevented snooping inside. A worn brass plate on the door — ‘D. M. Martin’. No initials after the name, no indication of professional qualifications.
Charles paused, undecided. It was an expensive area of London. Contract killing must be a lucrative business, if the man lived there. All around were expensive private doctors and architects. He looked up and down the road. A policeman about fifty yards away was watching him curiously.
That decided him. The Law was there to back him up if need be, and the thing had to be done. He couldn’t stand the strain of being under sentence of death any longer. It was time to take the bull by the horns.
The door gave easily when he turned the handle and he found himself in a carpeted hall. The smartly suited girl behind the desk looked up at him, surprised. ‘Can I help you?’
It was all too ridiculous. He had seen films about organised crime where the whole operation was run like big business with secretaries and receptionists, but he never expected to see it with his own eyes.
He was no longer afraid. Somehow here in the centre of London he felt safe. There was a policeman just outside. He could manage. ‘Did a bald man just come in here?’ he asked brusquely.
‘Mr Martin just arrived, but — ’
‘Where is he?’
‘He’s in his room, but do you have an appointment?’
‘No. I just want to see him.’
The girl treated him warily, as if he might be important.
‘Look, if you like to take a seat in the waiting-room, I’ll speak to Mr Martin and see what we can do. He’s got someone coming to see him at twelve, but I’ll — ’
