Here Comes Charlie M

FIVE

It wasn’t until he got into the churchyard and felt the damp, cold wind that always seems to blow in English cemeteries in November that Charlie Muffin sobered sufficiently to realise completely what he had done. And that the stupidity could kill him. Like so many stupidities before it.

The trained instinct surfaced through the swamp of alcohol and he pulled away from one of the main pathways, using a straggled yew tree for cover. About ten yards away, a black knot of people huddled speechless around a grave still cheerfully bright from funeral flowers. Nearer, a practised mourner, shirt-sleeved despite the cold, knelt over a green-pebbled rectangle on a padded cloth, scrubbing the headstone and surround into its original whiteness, lips moving in familiar conversation with someone who couldn’t reply any more. Charlie turned, widening his vision. At least twenty people spread throughout the churchyard. Too many.

‘You’re a prick,’ Charlie told himself. ‘A right prick.’

He frowned, surprised at the emergence of the habit. He’d always talked to himself, unashamedly, when he was under stress or afraid. It had been a long time since he had done it. Like welcoming back an old friend, he thought.

The drunkenness was gone now, but the pain was banded around his head and his throat was dehydrated. For a man apparently seeking a momentarily forgotten grave, he’d stood long enough beneath the tree, Charlie decided, groping for the professionalism of which he had once been so confident He swallowed, forcing back the desire to flee, to run back along the wider pathway to the car he could still see, over the low wall.

‘Never run,’ he murmured. ‘Never ever run.’

One of the basic lessons. Often ignored, though. Sometimes by people who should know better. And invariably by amateurs. Gunther Bayer had been an amateur. No, Charlie corrected, not an amateur. An innocent. A trusting, manipulated innocent who had believed Charlie was sincere in trying to help him escape across the Wall. And so he’d run when he got caught in the East German ambush that had been intended for Charlie. He’d been dead before the flames had engulfed the Volkswagen, Charlie assured himself. Had to be, in that cross-fire.

He pushed away from the tree, rejoining the main path, alert for the attention the movement would have caused even a trained watcher. Nothing. Perhaps he was all right, after all. Perhaps, after so long, there was no observation. Or perhaps they were too well trained.

The pathway along which he was walking ran parallel with the perimeter wall, Charlie realised. But there was a linking lane, built like a spoke through the middle. He could turn on to that and regain the entrance. Four hundred yards, he estimated. It seemed a very long way.

The hesitation was hardly perceptible when, suddenly, he saw the tomb. In his earlier drunkenness he had imagined that Sir Archibald Willoughby’s grave would be marked in an ordinary, traditional way, like that tended by the shirt-sleeved man near the yew tree. The family vault was an ornate, castellated affair, protected by an iron fence and reached through a low, locked gate. Plaques were set into the wall, recording the names of the occupants.

Charlie was confident his reaction to the vault had been completely covered; to stop, pause, even, would be all the confirmation they would need.

He was past, actually on the straight path leading to the exit, when the challenge came.

‘Charlie! Charlie Muffin!’

Afterwards Charlie remembered with satisfaction the smoothness of his reactions. The gateway was still too far away to consider walking on, as if the name meant nothing. He couldn’t run, of course. But they could. They’d get him before he’d gone twenty yards. They? It had been a single voice. Just one man, after so long? Probably. Fight then. Feign bewilderment, to gain the moment of uncertainty. Then fight to kill. Quickly, before anyone in the cemetery realised what was happening. Go for the throat, the carotid artery, smashing the voice box with the same blow. Sir Archibald’s tomb would give him the concealment. He’d only need minutes to get to the car.

He tensed, to make the turn, then stopped. There’d been all the training, certainly. Poncing about in canvas suits, waving his arms about and yelling ‘aargh’ like a bloody idiot. But he’d never killed anyone — not body to body, feeling the warmth of their skin and possibly seeing the terror in their faces. That had always been done by proxy, by others.

He completed the turn, head held curiously, keeping the movement purposely slow.

‘I’m sorry …’ he frowned, the confusion perfectly balanced.

It was a tall man, habitually stooped in an effort to reduce his size. Beaked nose, too large for his face. A clipped, military moustache, a darker brown than the swept-back, short-cropped hair. Familiar, decided Charlie. Someone from the old department then. The man smiled and began coming forward.

‘It is Charlie Muffin, isn’t it?’

He wasn’t professional, judged Charlie. Couldn’t be. What properly trained man openly challenged a victim? And then walked forward, both arms held out, losing any chance of surprise in producing a weapon? He wouldn’t make another juvenile mistake like Paris, Charlie decided.

Who then?

‘Willoughby,’ the man identified himself, as if in answer to Charlie’s question. ‘Rupert Willoughby.’

Charlie’s eyes flickered for a moment to the name on the tomb plaques, then back to the man who was now offering his hand, recognising the similarity. The handshake was firm, without the usual ridiculous tendency to turn it into a form of Indian palm wrestling, and the brown eyes held Charlie’s in a direct, almost unblinking gaze. Just like the old man’s, remembered Charlie. Until the end, that was.

‘What an incredible coincidence,’ said Willoughby.

‘Yes,’ agreed Charlie, the confusion genuine now.

Immediately fear swept it aside. If the graveyard were still under surveillance, then now he had been positively identified, he realised. Sir Archibald’s son would be known, to all of them. And they were standing immediately outside the vault, the marker he’d managed to avoid only minutes earlier. He still had a little time, he decided. Not much. But still enough to use.

He tried to withdraw his hand, turning back to the gate.

‘… decided to pay my respects,’ he stumbled, badly. ‘Haven’t been able to, before … in a hurry, though. Really must go.’

‘No, please, wait,’ protested Willoughby. ‘There’s a great deal for us to discuss … a business matter …’

‘Perhaps another time … sorry, I’m very late …’

Willoughby was walking with him, frowning at the rudeness. He reached into his pocket and Charlie edged away, apprehensively. The man produced a small wallet and offered Charlie a card.

‘We must meet again,’ he said. ‘It’s most important … to do with my father …’

‘Call you,’ promised Charlie, thrusting the pasteboard into his pocket. He was almost at the exit now. The obvious place, he decided; the lychgate would certainly provide some cover and they could get him away in a car before anyone in the cemetery realised the attack had happened. Charlie paused, examining it. There was no one there.

‘Promise?’ demanded Willoughby.

Charlie turned to the man, realising the need to recover.

‘I really am very sorry,’ he said, stopping with his back to the support pole for the gate roof, positioning himself where he could see the beginning of any approach. ‘It must seem very rude.’

Willoughby didn’t reply, confirming the assessment.

‘Like to spend more time … believe me.’

‘Call me then?’

‘Of course.’

‘When?’

‘Soon,’ promised Charlie hurriedly, turning through the gate. The mourners he had seen around the fresh grave were dispersing, heads bowed, into various cars. A woman was crying. The man who had been scrubbing the surround had finished, too, he saw. Carefully the man had packed the brush, cloths and bucket into the boot of an old Morris and was walking slowly towards the telephone.

‘I’ll be waiting,’ called Willoughby, after him.

Charlie drove alert for the slightest danger, eyes constantly scanning the rear view mirror. Purposely he went north-west, choosing Tunbridge Wells because it was the first town of any size, twisting and turning through the streets and then continuing north, to London, to repeat the evasion.

‘You’re a prick, Charlie,’ he accused himself again, as he took the car over Vauxhall Bridge. ‘A careless, idiot prick who deserves to die.’

He’d arranged to clear out the bank the following morning. But that didn’t matter now. Only survival mattered.

‘Prick,’ he said.

The London home and elegant, sophisticated refuge of George Wilberforce was a second-floor apartment overlooking Eaton Square. Here, from Monday to Friday, he lived, returning only at the weekends to a nagging, condescending wife who refused him the respect that everyone seemed to find so difficult, and from whom he would have welcomed divorce but for the admittedly remote but nevertheless possible harm such an event might have caused his career. Those responsible for appointments in the permanent civil service were known sometimes to possess strong religious views and it was wise not to take chances.

Particularly not now. Because now his career was more assured than it had ever been.

Delius, he decided, would suit his mood.

Apart from the habit with never-smoked pipes, the Director was a man who rarely betrayed any emotion, but now after standing for several movements by the stereo unit he suddenly moved away in a halting, stiff-jointed attempt at what appeared to be a waltz. He stopped, embarrassed by his efforts.

‘I’ve got you, Charlie Muffin,’ he said. ‘And now you’re going to suffer for what you did. Christ, you’re going to suffer.’