Dead men and broken hearts

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

Back in the bothy, I lit a fire with some of the wood from the store. I was no longer worried about attracting the attention of Ellis’s Hungarian chums, but I was mindful that I was still a man on the run.

The only thing that stuck with me was the two men I had seen in the inn. It was a hell of a coincidence that they happened along just at the same time I had, tourists in a season that was as off-season as it was possible to be.

The bread I had brought with me was stale and hard, but I toasted it at the fire and heated up some beans from a tin on the billycan. Another mug of tea, swimming in leaves that I had to pick off my lips and from my teeth, warmed me up.

It was only seven p.m. but pitch dark outside. My feet and right shoulder were aching, so I piled up the fire, unrolled the sleeping bag and went to sleep.

I woke up twice through the night. The first time was when I heard a desperate screaming. I sat bolt upright, trying to work out if I’d dreamt the scream. Then I heard it again. And again. It took me a while to realize that it wasn’t human. A fox, it sounded like to me.

I settled back down and tried to calm my heartbeat and nerves. Eventually my exhaustion reclaimed me and I fell back into another dream about card games and how many people there really were at the table.

The second awakening was less rude, and took place just as grey fingers of daylight were beginning to probe the bothy through the small, square window.

‘Mr Lennox?’ a voice asked. A hand shook my shoulder. ‘Wake up, please, Mr Lennox…’

Remembering where I was and what I was doing there fell into my brain at the same time as the realization that there shouldn’t be anyone there with me, especially someone who knew my name. I spun around and sat up, my movements restricted by the sleeping bag. A hand steadily but forcibly pushed me back down. I heard the click of a hammer being pulled back on a gun.

I saw the gun. And the face. It was a hard, cruel, pockmarked face with blond hair combed back and plastered to his skull with macassar. The leaner of the two men I had seen in the bar. He eased back, keeping the gun on me.

‘Please, Mr Lennox, get up and gather your stuff. You need to come with us now.’ The quiet, polite tone didn’t fit with the face, or the situation. The accent sounded more English to me than anything else. Not a foreigner, unless you considered anyone from south of Carlisle an alien.

‘And if I don’t?’

He smiled and shrugged. ‘Then that could make things unpleasant. Now, if you don’t mind…’

I lay there, considering my options. One of them was jabbing painfully into my waist. I had slept, deliberately, with the Femaru-Frommer automatic stuck in my waistband. But my polite chum had caught me unawares, and — like I said — I was in no position to enter a fast-draw contest. The question was whether Blondy knew I was armed or not. From his relaxed manner, I guessed not. I just hoped he wasn’t going to search me when I got out of the sleeping bag.

I winced as I struggled to extricate myself from the sleeping bag, a sharp jab stabbing into my strained right shoulder.

‘Bit tender?’ the blond thug asked. ‘We found the car. You were lucky to walk away from that, I’ll tell you.’

‘The question is, am I going to walk away from this?’

‘That’s up to you… Please, gather your stuff together.’

At that, the door opened behind him and his pal appeared; the one with the curly hair, beard and a build to put the bothy to shame.

‘Go back and tell them we’ve found him,’ the blond guy said.

‘Will you be all right here?’ asked Curly.

‘We’ll just get ready to go, won’t we, Mr Lennox?’

‘You’re the one making the decisions,’ I said, nodding to the gun in his hand.

‘Get them to send a car as close as they can get it. No need to attract more attention than we need to.’

Curly disappeared and Blondy leaned against the wall, watching me while I packed up my stuff, coiling the sleeping bag back up into a roll. The only time he looked less than relaxed was when I reached for my camp knife, which sat on the table.

‘Leave the knife…’ he said sharply. ‘I’ll get that for you when we go.’

When I was packed, he told me to sit cross-legged on the floor, with my hands where he could see them. Other than that, he seemed perfectly relaxed and in control. He hadn’t searched me. They obviously didn’t know that Ellis’s gun had gone missing. Or didn’t consider me enough of an operator to come along heavy.

‘So…’ I said conversationally. ‘How’s the world of international post-war fascism?’

He stared at me blankly.

‘You don’t sound like some Budapest Blackshirt — so, unless I’ve got my wires, or my arrows, crossed, I’m guessing you’re the local help. Or relatively local… it’s clear that you ain’t frum arrund thees paarts…’

My humour failed to work its magic on him. I fell silent. I had no moves. He was across the room from me, I was sitting with my legs crossed and, despite his relaxed demeanour, the barrel of his gun stayed locked onto me. Rushing him now would be fatal.

‘So what now?’ I asked.

‘You’ve been getting in the way, Mr Lennox. My job is to take you out of the way. Simple as that.’

‘I see,’ I said.

We sat in silence for half-an-hour and my legs began to protest at being permanently crossed. I winced and wriggled.

‘You can stand up and stretch your legs,’ he said, straightening up from the wall. ‘But nice and slow.’

I did as he said, surprised by his consideration. After I had stretched the knots out of my muscles, he told me to sit again, but said I didn’t need to cross my legs, if I stayed very still and kept my hands in sight.

His architecturally-built friend arrived at the doorway again, red-faced from exertion and sweating in his heavy coat. Both men were dressed for the weather, but not the terrain, and both, I noticed, were wearing ordinary town shoes.

‘I’ve got the car as close as I can. We’re to take him straight there,’ he said.

‘Fine.’ Blondy turned to me. ‘Time to go, sport. And let’s keep this nice and civilized. No monkey business.’

‘I’m too tired and sore for that,’ I said dully.

‘Pick up your pack and let’s go.’

I didn’t put the rucksack on, instead swinging it over one shoulder. They made me walk ahead of them, Blondy cool and focused, keeping the automatic on me, Curly puffing away with the exertion.

‘I take it you’re not the outdoor type…’ I said over my shoulder as we descended the trail back into the glen.

‘Shut the fuck up and walk,’ said Curly bad-temperedly. He clearly hadn’t been to the same finishing school as Blondy.

As we walked, I could hear them both occasionally skidding on the gravel, their smooth-soled shoes failing to gain purchase on the loose, gravelly path. If I had an opportunity anywhere, that was where it would lie.

I made a show of stumbling over a rock myself, struggling to steady myself under the weight of my rucksack. When we made the turn that took the path towards the village, I could see where they had parked their car, on some rough ground beside the roadway. What’s more, I recognized the car, or at least I was pretty sure I did. It was the same model and colour as the car that had been parked outside Larry Franks’s that night. If we had been in the corresponding spot on the opposite side of the valley, they would have been able to drive the car along to a spot just below the bothy. As it was, we had another five to ten-minute walk to reach the car.

I stumbled again and I sensed Blondy tensing behind me.

‘Damned boots,’ I said. ‘They’re the wrong size. I had to pick them up in a hurry.’

‘That right?’ he said. ‘That’s a relief. Because here was I beginning to think that your little pantomime was you getting ready to make some kind of move… And that wouldn’t end at all well. And slow down a little. Don’t try taking advantage of the rough going.’

Yep. He was the brains of the two all right. And experienced at this kind of thing, whatever this kind of thing was.

‘You’re not going to shoot me because of a bad choice of footwear?’ I said.

‘People have been shot for less.’

Yeah, I thought. But it’s not me that’s made the bad choice of footwear.

The world dimmed a little. And not because of my mood. The Highlands of Scotland were notoriously mercurial. A bright, sunny day could turn into a deadly snowstorm, a blinding fog or rain to make your head bleed without any warning. I could see a dark seething of clouds and the dark shafts of heavy rain rolling in from the far end of the valley, moving up in the direction of the village. Even where we were, a milky sheet of high cloud suffused and dulled the winter sun. The rain would have been a huge advantage to me, but I’d be in the car and long gone before it got this far up the valley.

I was running out of options. I scanned as much of the valley as I could without moving my head: measuring the distance to the car, the narrow, rough path leading to it, the steep flank of the valley rising up to my right, impossible to scale in any haste, and the equally steep slope on the left, down into the river. However I looked at it, I was a sitting duck.

But if I got into that car, I’d be a dead one.

I saw a vehicle on the other side of the valley, quite a ways back, heading towards the village. I kept walking. Then I decided to see how far Blondy’s obliging nature would extend.

‘Listen,’ I said over my shoulder. ‘Could you do me a favour?’

‘What?’ he asked, neither patient or impatient.

‘Could you grab hold of this?’

I spun round, swinging the rucksack and let it go so that it flew hard in his direction. Instinct told him to protect himself rather than take aim, but only for the tiniest shaving of a second. I used that tiny moment well. I made no attempt to run. Instead I half-dropped, half-threw myself forwards and sideways, my injured shoulder thumping painfully onto the grass. Then I rolled. After the first couple of rolls Isaac Newton did the rest and I bounced and tumbled down the slope towards the valley bottom. I slowed with the decreasing incline and somehow found myself running, my feet splashing in shallow water, then deeper water up to my knees, my boots slipping on the current-smoothed rocks on the river bed. I didn’t even take the time to look over my shoulder.

I heard Blondy shout for me to stop, which, even in my panic, struck me as one of the most redundant and stupid commands to issue, other than to ask me to stand still so he could get a better shot. I heard two cracks in quick succession and then the sound of bullets hitting the water and ricocheting off the rocks. But they were some way off.

He shouted again, and again two rounds zipped harmlessly into the river. I was splashing my way through fast-flowing, knee-deep water which slowed me to walking pace. The next rounds, I guessed, were going to hit me. But he didn’t fire again.

I allowed myself one desperate look behind me. Blondy was coming down the slope towards the river — I guessed to get a better shot at me — but his smooth leather soles were causing him to skid and slip all over the place. Curly was lumbering behind him — far behind him — and didn’t represent any danger. A third man had gotten out of the car and was charging towards the river. He was tall and in a dark coat and even from this distance I recognized him as the boss of the men at Larry Franks’s place.

I kept running. I was out of the river, racing across the river’s edge and then scrambling up the bank to the road, grabbing handfuls of turf to haul myself up.

I made it onto the roadway just as the car I had seen drew close. I recognized it as the mud-splattered Land Rover I saw the day before. The driver was a man in his fifties. He stared at me, shocked.

‘Did I see these men shoot at you?’ he said.

‘I need your help. Can you get me out of here?’

‘Get in…’ he said. And I did.