‘The lot.’
‘Get in, then.’ He opened the door for me, and put his hand on my arm when I rocked. ‘If Elizabeth needs me, blow the horn.’
‘Right.’
I sat in the seat, slid down, and put my head back. Sleep began to creep in round the edges.
‘You all right?’ I said to Elizabeth.
Her head was behind me. I heard her murmur quietly, ‘Yes.’
The pump hummed rhythmically, aiding and abetting the whisky. The sense of urgency drifted away. Tonio would drive us... Elizabeth was safe. My eyelids gave up the struggle. I sank into a pit, whirling and disorientated. Not an unpleasant feeling if one didn’t fight it.
Tonio opened the door and shook me awake.
‘Drink this,’ he said. A mug of coffee, black and sweet. ‘I’ll be with you in a minute.’
He went back into the house, propping the door open with a heavy wrought-iron facsimile of the Pisa Tower. The coffee was too hot. With exaggerated care I put the mug down on the floor. Straightened up wishing the load of ache across my shoulders would let up and go away, but was much too full of the world’s oldest anaesthetic to feel it very clearly.
I had been as drunk as that only once before, and it wasn’t the night they told me Elizabeth would die, but four days later when they said she would live. I’d downed uncountable double whiskies and I’d eaten almost nothing for a week. It was odd to remember the delirious happiness of that night because of course it hadn’t after all been the end of an agony but only the beginning of the years of pain and struggle and waste...
I found myself staring vacantly at the off-side wing mirror. If I conshen... well, concentrated... very hard, I thought bemusedly, I would be able to see what it reflected. A pointless game. It simply irritated me that I couldn’t see clearly if I wanted to. Looked obstinately at the mirror and waited for the slowed-down focussing process to come right. Finally, with a ridiculous smile of triumph, I saw what it saw down the street. Nothing much. Nothing worth the trouble. Only a silly old taxi parked by the kerb. Only a silly man in a raincoat getting into it.
Raincoat.
Raincoat.
The alarm bells rang fuzzily in my sluggish head. I opened the door and fumbled my way on to the pavement, kicking the coffee over in the process. Leaned against the side of the van and looked down towards the taxi. It was still parked. By the telephone box. Where the man in the raincoat had been ringing someone up.
They say sudden overwhelming disaster sobers you, but it isn’t true. I reeled across the pavement and up the step to Tonio’s door. Forgot all about blowing the car horn. Banged the solid knocker on his door, and called him loudly. He appeared at the top of the stairs, which led to his consulting room on the first floor and his flat above that.
‘Shut up, Ty,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long.’
‘Shome... someone’s followed us,’ I said. ‘It’s dangerous.’ He wouldn’t understand, I thought confusedly. He wouldn’t know what I was talking about. I didn’t know where to start explaining.
Elizabeth, however, must have told him enough.
‘Oh. All right, I’ll be down in one minute.’ His head withdrew round the bend in the stairs and I swivelled unsteadily to take another look down the street. Taxi still there, in the same place. Light out, not for hire. Just waiting. Waiting to follow us again if we moved. Waiting to tell Vjoersterod where we’d gone.
I shook with futile rage. Vjoersterod hadn’t after all been satisfied that Ross’s truncheon and the threats against Elizabeth had been enough to ensure a permanent state of docility. He’d left Raincoat outside to watch. Just in case. I hadn’t spotted him. Had been much too drunk to spot anything. But there he was. Right on our tail.
I’ll fix him, I thought furiously. I’ll fix him properly.
Tonio started to come down the stairs, escorting a thin, bent, elderly man whose breath rasped audibly through his open mouth. Slowly they made it to the bottom. Tonio held his arm as they came past me, and helped him over the threshold and down the step to the pavement. An almost equally elderly woman emerged from the Rover parked directly behind my van. Tonio handed him over, helped him into the car, came back to me.
‘He likes to come at night,’ he explained. ‘Not so many fumes from the traffic, and easier parking.’
‘Lord Fore... Fore something,’ I said.
‘Forlingham,’ Tonio nodded. ‘Do you know him?’
‘Used to go racing. Poor old thing.’ I looked wuzzily up the street. ‘See that taxi?’
‘Yes.’
‘Following us.’
‘Oh.’
‘So you take ’Lizabeth on to the nursing home. I’ll stop the taxi.’ A giggle got as far as the first ridiculous note. ‘What’s worse than raining cats and dogs? I’ll tell you... hailing taxis.’
‘You’re drunk,’ Tonio said. ‘Wait while I change my coat.’ He was wearing formal consultants’ dress and looked young and glamorous enough to be a pop singer. ‘Can we wait?’
I swung out a generous arm in a wide gesture. ‘The taxi,’ I said owlishly, ‘is waiting for us.’
He went to change his coat. I could hear Elizabeth’s pump thudding safely away; wondered if I ought to go and reassure her; thought that in my state I probably couldn’t. The Forling-hams started up and drove away. The taxi went on waiting.
At first I thought what I saw next was on the pink elephant level. Not really there. Couldn’t be there. But this time, no hallucination. Edging smoothly round the corner, pulling gently into the kerb, stopping behind the taxi, one Silver Wraith, property of Hire Cars Lucullus.
Raincoat emerged from the taxi and reported to the Rolls. Two minutes later he returned to the taxi, climbed in, and was driven away.
Tonio ran lightly down the stairs and came to a halt beside me in a black sweater instead of a coat.
‘Let’s get going,’ he said.
I put my hand clumsily on his arm.
‘Shee... I mean, see that Rolls down there, where the taxi was.’
‘Yes.’
‘In that,’ I said carefully, is the man who... oh God, why can’t I think... who said he would... kill... ’Lizabeth if I didn’t do what he wanted... well... he might... he might not... but can’t rish... risk it. Take her... Take her. I’ll stop... him following you.’
‘How?’ Tonio said unemotionally.
I looked at the Tower of Pisa holding the door open.
‘With that.’
‘It’s heavy,’ he objected, assessing my physical state.
‘Oh for God’s sake stop arguing,’ I said weakly. ‘I want her to go where they can’t find her. Please... please get going... go on, Tonio. And drive away slowly.’
He hesitated, but finally showed signs of moving. ‘Don’t forget,’ he said seriously, ‘that you are no use to Elizabeth dead.’
‘’Spose not.’
‘Give me your coat,’ he said suddenly. ‘Then they’ll think it’s still you in the van.’
I took off my coat obediently, and he put it on. He was shorter than me. It hung on him. Same dark head, though. They might mistake us from a distance.
Tonio gave a riproaring impression of my drunken walk, reeling right round the back of the van on his way to the driving seat. I laughed. I was that drunk.
He started the van and drove slowly away. I watched him give one artistic weave across the road and back. Highly intelligent fellow, Tonio Perelli.
Down the road, the Silver Wraith began to move. Got to stop him, I thought fuzzily. Got to stop him smashing up our lives, smashing up other people’s lives. Someone, somewhere, had to stop him. In Welbeck Street, with a doorstop. Couldn’t think clearly beyond that one fact. Had to stop him.