Carver

69

Carver was not, for once, pleased to see Alix. ‘What is it?’ he asked her impatiently.

She smiled flirtatiously and kept the happy, carefree look on her face as she said, ‘Zorn just said he was about to leave.’

‘Couldn’t you just text?’ he said, smiling back.

‘It was easier to say I needed the bathroom. And you’re better placed out here. When he goes, he will come out of this door, right there, and you will see him. Besides,’ and now the phony flirting gave way to a much more serious emotion, ‘I wanted to be with you. Just for a minute or two…’

Carver was about to reply when he saw her frown. She stepped closer to him, nuzzled her lips against his ear, and, making it look as though she was giving Carver her full attention — even though her half-closed ice-blue eyes were focused at a point beyond his left shoulder — she said, ‘There’s a man by the bandstand looking at you. He looks Chinese: quite tall, slender build, black designer jeans, black jacket, dark glasses…’

‘Chinese?’ Carver asked quizzically, wondering what interest anyone from the Far East might have in him. He’d made some serious enemies in Thailand, but that had been a long time ago. And they’d all been dead when he’d left them.

‘You’re sure he’s not just looking around, watching the world go by?’ he asked.

‘No. This looks like surveillance.’ She frowned. ‘There are two other guys with him, very similar style of clothes — jeans, jackets, but more casual — he’s talking to them. They both looked this way, too. OK, now they’re moving towards us, fanning out.’

‘Are they armed?’

‘I can’t be sure, but they certainly could be. Under those jackets

… sure.’

‘Take my hand,’ Carver said. ‘They could be coming for you, not me. Let’s see how interested they really are.’

Gripping her tightly, he turned on his heel and started walking towards St Mary’s Walk, the path that cuts right through the Wimbledon site from north to south. It begins at the top of Aorangi Terrace, and plunges downhill all the way to the far end of the club grounds, passing virtually every court and building of any significance as it goes.

Carver and Alix moved quickly, with the purposeful strides of people with an urgent appointment to keep, forcing their way past slower movers with brusque words of warning or apology. They reached St Mary’s Walk at a point about two-thirds of the way along it. To their left, it continued down past the new mini-stadium of Court Number Three, and a gaggle of outside courts, to a tented village of shops and eating places. Carver went the other way, up a steep flight of stairs. Here the path ran like the floor of a canyon between the looming bulk of Centre Court on one side and the zigzag facade of the Millennium Building on the other. This was where both the press and the players had all the facilities they needed to work and relax, and the mini-theatre where both sides met for pre- and post-match interviews.

Carver stopped at the top of the stairs and looked back. The three Chinese were heading his way, forcing their way past the people at the foot of the steps thirty or forty metres away. He tightened his grip on Alix’s hand. ‘Let’s go.’

Ahead of him the crowd became even thicker. A knot of fans stood immobile in the middle of the path, clutching cameras, video recorders and phones, and gazing up at a covered footbridge that ran over their heads between the Millennium Building and Centre Court. They were waiting to see a star player walk along it, going to or from a match, and they glared crossly at Carver as he forced his way through.

He heard a gasp from Alix.

‘What is it?’ he asked.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘Up the hill… more of them.’

Carver grunted to show that he’d spotted three more Chinese, one of them female. They might be completely innocent, but he couldn’t afford to risk it. He and Alix were caught almost exactly halfway between the two groups. He glanced at one, then the other, before giving a sharp tug on Alix’s hand.

‘Change of plan,’ he said.

He turned towards the Millennium Building and made for a gap in its facade, past the plate-glass windows behind which the world’s tennis journalists were sitting at their desks, splitting their attention between TV and computer screen as they filed their latest reports. Now Carver came to a small courtyard, hemmed in on all sides by high white walls. He felt Alix flinch as she took in their claustrophobic surroundings. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘Through here.’

He made for a door in the far corner of the courtyard, that opened on to a stairwell.

‘Down,’ he said. ‘We’re going underground.’