Quantum of tweed

Chapter Three

The following morning, Albert stirred from troubled sleep to reach out and pick up the phone by his bed. He had bought the old-fashioned item in a fanciful mood, then found that a rotary dial was nowhere near as much fun as he remembered. Calling a mobile number took ages. As he pressed the bulky receiver to his ear, he realised the ringing was still going on. He leapt out of bed like a salmon, crossing the room to the still dusty coat he had retrieved from the bottom of the cliff. It was the special phone and he tried to calm his breathing as he took the call.

‘Yes, Mr Hawking?’ he said, then clapped a hand over his mouth. There was a long silence at the other end before he heard the mechanical voice he knew so well.

‘You think this is Stephen Hawking?’ the voice asked. Even through the electronic disguise, Albert could hear the surprise.

‘It’s my nickname for you, that’s all,’ he said, wincing.

‘It will do. Good work yesterday. For a man known as “Bullet”, you are more imaginative than I was told to expect.’

Albert Rossi digested this for a moment, thinking back to the assassin he had run over in his Micra two weeks before.

‘I… work with whatever is to hand,’ he said, trying to sound calm and generally relaxed.

‘I have another job. Are you available?’

Albert thought of the money he still owed and the constant drain on his bank account from the general lack of interest in Eastcote menswear. Despite the terror he had experienced on the cliff at Dunstable, despite the sweat that had dribbled into his eyes, he had never felt more alive. Cufflinks and bow ties were nowhere near as exciting. Perhaps one day he would even visit a casino — and not just to use the men’s room this time.

‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Drop the details off with the money. The usual place. Oh, and I’ll need some bullets.’

‘I see. What kind?’

Albert panicked. There is something about a pistol that makes grown men want to pick it up. He’d spent part of the previous evening posing with it in front of a mirror. Where had he left the thing? As the voice asked again, he spotted the handle sticking out from under his pillow. Not the handle, the ‘grip’, he reminded himself. Or possibly the ‘butt’; he really had no idea. New sweat broke out on his forehead as he read out the tiny lettering on the gun.

‘Um… Colt Government 1911. Dot forty-five.’

It was heavy and square in his hand, but he felt more confident just holding it. A Colt 45! A piece of America in an Englishman’s hand. Glorious.

‘Very well. I’ll put a couple of full clips in the envelope.’

Albert was not exactly what you would call a ladies’ man. The great flames of youthful passion had passed him by, with the exception of one long summer in his late thirties when he dallied with an attractive widow and had even thought about asking her to marry him. The fires of his heart had turned to ash when he discovered she was also running around with the local butcher. Rather than compete with a man who could woo with sausages, Albert had sent her a dignified letter and ended it. Those golden days were still among his favourite memories, but as the sum total of a man’s experiences with the opposite sex, it was somewhat lacking.

Perhaps as a result, the group of teenage girls hanging around the entrance to Eastcote station at midnight left him slightly flustered. As he waited for them to leave, he checked his watch at intervals. They seemed in no hurry and all he could do was stand near the crucial bin and read a newspaper.

He may have had an air of innocence, despite his deadly new profession. It takes time to grow into a hard-faced assassin, even for one who had begun so promisingly. Albert’s wide-eyed nervousness may have caught the interest of the girls in the way that a mouse will attract a pack of feline predators; it is hard to say. It may have been the amount of alcohol the girls had consumed or the fact that they had a vague idea of asking a stranger to buy more. Either way, they surrounded him like lions on a wobbly zebra.

They were loud when they screeched with laughter. They were also loud when they whispered. Albert could only cringe and stammer answers as they fired questions at him. When he dropped his newspaper and bent down to pick it up, one of them patted him on the bottom and then was almost sick laughing at his horrified expression.

‘You a dirty old man, then?’ another asked, grinning.

Albert tried to reply, but to say he was out of his depth is to imply that he had some concept of depth. He was not even in the pool.

‘He’s got a long coat. I think he is a dirty old man.’

Albert knew about blushes, of course. The lady he had once adored had read romantic novels by the yard, though as he reflected later and with justifiable bitterness, not a single one had a butcher as its hero. She had even read a few choice passages aloud to him, perhaps hoping that they would inspire Albert Rossi to similar efforts. Blushes were mentioned every second or third page in those.

He was not as familiar with the wave of heat and embarrassment that seemed to begin at his shoes and work up to the stiff collar of his shirt. He suspected small Eskimo children could warm themselves on him at that moment. In a sort of daze, he imagined they would bless him for saving them from a hard winter and only roll him out on the coldest of days. He could almost see the stern Eskimo mother wagging a finger at the little ones and telling them not to waste their Albert when it was a mere forty degrees below zero. The mind is a strange thing, and it is worth remembering that Albert was under a lot of stress. With an effort, he shook his head clear of Eskimos.

‘I’m just waiting for someone,’ he said.

The first girl was perhaps sixteen. She was dressed in a way that was clearly meant to be appealing. There was a lot of flesh spilling out of her top. Most of it jiggled when she laughed and he could hardly point out the chip that had fallen into her cleavage without revealing that he had noticed her cleavage. He decided against that.

‘My mum warned me about men like you,’ she said cheerfully. ‘All they want is sex.’

Albert gaped at her, but he found nerve enough to reply.

‘I’d be satisfied with a bit of peace and quiet,’ he said firmly. ‘It is after midnight.’

‘Ooh, he wants you to satisfy him, Sal!’ her friend hooted. ‘ Dirty old man!’

A distant rumble under his feet saved him from worse. One of the girls yelled ‘Traaaain!’ and the whole painted pack scooted into the station. Albert watched them go with a feeling of relief mingled with regret. He had not talked to a female for a long time. Perhaps if he went to a casino in his new role as assassin-for-hire he would meet some Russian beauty at the roulette table. He shook his head. Unlikely, even for a fantasy.

Now that the street was quiet, he sidled over to the bin at last. Under the half-eaten kebabs and free newspapers was a thick brown envelope, almost a package. It looked bulkier than the one for Peter Schenk, but he didn’t want to open it there. He hurried down Field End Road back to his flat, tucking the envelope safely under the gaberdine coat he was wearing for just that purpose. A dirty old man would not have the style to carry off gaberdine wool, he told himself. It would more likely be a blend or, he shuddered at the thought, textured polyester.

Standing in the doorway of the kebab shop by the station, holding a large doner with salad, special sauce and a bright green chilli pepper, Police Constable George Thompson watched him go. Despite his profession, PC Thompson was not suspicious by nature. He had been amused at first to see a group of young girls harass a rather prim-looking man over by the station. Yet there was something strange about the man’s reactions as he hovered around the bin on the crest of the hill. The police officer had been chewing slowly and deliberately on his doner with only vague interest when he saw Albert Rossi search the bin. That interest had sharpened considerably when he saw the man come up with a thick envelope and go hurrying off down the road with it.

PC Thompson had very blue eyes, weary after a long shift. If Albert had been looking into them, he would have seen them go cold and hard, much like the final piece of the kebab. The policeman was a believer in instinct and he chose to spend his last hour before bed walking slowly along Field End Road after the unsuspecting Albert Rossi, then noting the door number of his little flat on the balcony above the shops.