‘You’re infuriating.’
‘Look, Bel, we’ve not known each other... I mean, not like this... for very long. It hasn’t been what you’d call a courtship, has it?’
She grinned at the memories: producing the gun in Chuck’s Gym, fleeing his men in Upper Norwood, making false documents in Tottenham, pretending to be police officers...
‘Besides,’ I said, ‘the sort of work I’m in doesn’t exactly make for a home life. I’ve no real friends, I’m not sure I’d even know how to begin the sort of relationship you’re suggesting.’
Now she looked hurt. ‘Well, that’s very honest of you, Michael. Only it sounds a bit feeble, a bit like self-pity.’
My first course arrived. I ate a few mouthfuls before saying anything. Bel was looking out of the window. Either that or she was studying my reflection. It struck me that she knew so little about me. The person she’d seen so far wasn’t exactly typical. It was like she’d been seeing a reflection all along.
‘Once you get to know me,’ I confided, ‘I’m a really boring guy. I don’t do much, I don’t say much.’
‘What are you trying to tell me? You think I’m looking for Action Man, and I’m not.’ She unfolded her napkin. ‘Look, forget I said anything, all right?’
‘All right,’ I said.
I thought about our relationship so far. There’d been some kissing and hugging, and we’d spent two nights together. We hadn’t done anything though, we’d just lain together in the near-dark, comfortable and semi-clad. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to make love with her. I don’t know what it was.
Part of me wished I’d left her behind in London, or insisted on dropping her off in Yorkshire. It was hard to concentrate with her around. I knew it was harder to take risks, too. I’d taken them in London, then regretted them afterwards. In Scotland, I wouldn’t take any, not with her around. I’d be like one of those Harley Davidson riders, forced by circumstance to wear a crash helmet. But when I looked across the table at her, I was glad she was there looking back at me, no matter how sulkily. She kept my mind off Hoffer. He was in danger of becoming an obsession. He’d come close to me once before, last year, after a hit in Atlanta, not far from the World of Coca-Cola. I’d visited the museum before the hit, since my target would visit there during his stay in the city. But in the end I hit him getting out of his limo outside a block of offices. He was being feted in the penthouse suite while he was in Atlanta. The bastard was so tough, he lived a few hours after my bullet hit home. That doesn’t normally happen with a heart shot. It’s the reason I don’t shoot to the head: you can blast away a good portion of skull and brain and the victim can survive. Not so with a heart shot. They took him to some hospital and I waited for news of his demise. If he’d lived, that would have been two fails from three attempts and my career would not have been in good shape.
After the news of his death, I moved out of my hotel. I’d been there for days, just waiting. Across the street was an ugly windowless edifice, some kind of clothing market. ‘A garment district in a box’ was how a fellow drinker in the hotel bar described it. It was so grey and featureless, it made me book a ticket to Las Vegas, where I didn’t spend much money but enjoyed seeing people winning it. The few winners were always easy to spot; the countless losers were more like wallpaper. Hoffer looked like a loser, which was why despite his bulk he was hard to notice. But then he made a mistake. He had himself paged in the hotel casino. I’m sure he did it so people might recognise him. I recognised his name, and watched him go to the desk. Then I went to my room and packed. I could have taken him out, except no one was paying me to. Plus I’d already disposed of my armoury.
I still don’t know how he tracked me. He has a bloodhound’s nose, as well as a large pocket. So long as Walkins is paying him, I’ll have to keep moving. Either that or kill the sonofabitch.
What sort of a life was that to share with someone?
I found out in Vegas that my victim had been a prominent businessman from Chicago, down in Atlanta for the baseball. In Chicago he’d been campaigning to clean up the city, to bring crooked businesses to light and reveal money laundering and bribery of public officials. In Vegas the saloon consensus was that the guy had to be crazy to take that lot on.
‘You see a sign saying “Beware — Rattlesnakes”, you don’t go sticking your head under the rock. Am I right or am I right?’
The drinker was right, of course, but that didn’t make me feel any better. I felt bad for a whole two hours and five cognacs, after which I didn’t feel much of anything at all.
And then Hoffer had come to town, as welcome as a Bible salesman, sending me travelling again.
No, mine was definitely not a life for sharing, not even with someone like Bel.
We stuck around Glasgow long enough to rent a car. Now I was clear of London and the immediate investigation, I didn’t mind. It was another Ford Escort, white this time and without the options. Driving out of the city was not the happiest hour of my life. The centre of the city was based on the American grid system, but there were flyovers and motorways and junctions with no route signs. We found ourselves heading south, and then west, when what we wanted was north. The directions the man at the rental firm had given us proved useless, so I pulled into a petrol station and bought a map book. Although we were on the road to Greenock, we could cut over a bridge at Erskine and, with any luck, join the A82 there.
We cheered when the roadsign informed us we’d found the A82, and the drive after that was beautiful. The road took us winding along the westernmost side of Loch Lomond, Bel breaking into half-remembered songs about high roads and low roads and people wearing kilts. After Loch Lomond we stopped at Crianlarich for food, then cut west on to the A85, the country wild and windswept. It had been raining on and off since we’d crossed the border, but now it became torrential, the wind driving the rain across our vision. We hit the tip of another forbidding loch, and soon reached the coast, stopping in the middle of Oban to stretch our legs and sniff out accommodation.
There were NO VACANCY signs everywhere, till we asked at a pub on the road back out of town. Bel had wanted to stay near the dockside, and I told her that was fine by me, I just hoped she’d be warm enough sleeping out of doors. When she saw our two rooms at the Claymore, though, she brightened. The woman who showed us up said there’d be a ‘rare’ breakfast for us in the morning, which I took to mean it would be very good rather than hard to find or undercooked.
The rooms smelt of fresh paint and refurbished fittings. Bel had a view on to fields next to the pub. There were sheep in the fields and no traffic noises. It was just about perfect. The rain had even stopped.
‘And I could understand every word she said,’ she claimed with pride, referring to our strained conversation with the car hire man in Glasgow, and the local in Crianlarich who had tried engaging Bel in conversation about, so far as either of us could make out, trout-tickling.
We ate in the bar, and asked casually if our hostess knew where Ben Glass was.
‘It’s out past Diarmid’s Pillar. Hillwalkers, are you?’
‘Not exactly.’
She smiled. ‘Beinn Ghlas is a summit between Loch Nell and Loch Nant.’
‘That doesn’t sound what we’re looking for. It’s more of a... commune, a religious community.’
‘You mean the New Agers? Yes, they’re off that way.’
‘You don’t know where, though?’
She shook her head. ‘How was the Scotch broth?’
‘It was delicious,’ Bel said. Later, we asked if we could borrow a map of the area. Most of the roads were little more than tracks. The only Ben Glass I could see was the summit.