As Romanov’s eyes ranged up and down the
coach he quickly picked out Robin Beresford. Just as he had anticipated, the
double bass was propped up by her side,’ making it impossible to see who was
seated next to her.
“You won’t pull that one on me a second
time,” Romanov muttered, just as the colonel appeared by his side, red in the
face.
“Where’s the car?” the Russian demanded, not
taking his eye from the coach.
“I’ve booked one provisionally,” said the
colonel, “but they’ll need your international licence. I forgot Scott has got
mine, along with all my other papers.”
“You stay put,” said Romanov, “and make sure
Scott doesn’t try to get off that coach.” Romanov ran to the Avis desk at the
same time as Adam was being wheeled into a little cubicle to be examined by the
duty registrar.
The young doctor leant over his patient for
several minutes. He had never seen a wound quite like it before. He examined
him carefully, before making any comment. “Nasty lacerations,” he said finally,
cleaning Adam’s shoulder wound. “Can you circle your arm?” Adam turned the arm
in a full circle and straightened it again. “Good. No break, at least.” He
continued to clean the wound.
“I’m going to put some iodine on the open
cut and it may sting a little,” said the doctor. He cleaned up both elbows
before placing a plaster on them.
“That didn’t happen today,
did
it?” he asked, staring at Adam’s half-healed shoulder.
“No,” said Adam, without offering any
explanations.
“You have been in the wars lately. I’m going
to give you an anti-tetanus injection.” Adam turned white. “Funny how many
grown men don’t care for the sight of a needle,” said the doctor. Adam groaned.
“Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he coaxed
as he placed a large bandage over the top of the shoulder. “Do you have someone
to collect you?” the doctor asked finally.
“Yes, thank you,” said Adam. “My wife is
waiting for me.”
“Good, then you can go now, but please
report to your GP the moment you get back home.”
Romanov sat in the driver’s seat and watched
the coach clear customs. He followed it out of the main gate and on to the A2
in the direction of London.
“Are we going to intercept them on the way?”
asked Pollard nervously.
“Not this time,” said Romanov without
explanation. He never once allowed the coach out of his sight all the way into
the capital.
Adam walked out of the hospital and checked
to see that no one was following him. The only people in sight were a man in a
blue duffle coat walking in the opposite direction, and a nurse scurrying past
him, looking anxiously at her watch. Satisfied, he took a taxi to Dover Priory
station and purchased a single ticket to London.
“When’s the next train?” he asked.
“Should be in any moment,” said the ticket
collector, .checking his watch. “The ship docked about forty minutes ago, but
it always takes a bit of time to unload all the passengers.” Adam walked on to
the platform, keeping a wary eye out for anyone acting suspiciously. He didn’t
notice the dark-haired man in a blue duffle coat leaning against the shutters
of the W. H. Smith’s stall reading the
Evening
Standard.
Adam’s thoughts returned to Robin getting
safely home. The London train drew in, packed with passengers who had been on
the boat. Adam moved out of the shadows and jumped on, selecting a carriage
full of teddy-boys who were apparently returning from a day at the seaside. He
thought it would be unlikely anyone else would wish to join them.
He.
took
the only seat left in the
far corner and sat silently but not in silence looking out of the window.
By the time the train had pulled into
Canterbury no one had entered the carriage other than the ticket collector, who
discreetly ignored the fact that one of the youths only presented him with a
platform ticket for his inspection. Adam felt strangely safe in the corner of
that particular compartment even when he noticed a dark-haired man in a blue
duffle coat pass by the compartment door and look in carefully.
Adam was jolted out of his thoughts by a
noisy claim made by one of the gang who during the journey had given every
appearance of being its leader.
“There’s a foul smell in this compartment,”
he declared, sniffing loudly.
“I agree, Terry,” said his mate who was
sitting next to Adam and also began imitating the sniff. “And I think it’s
quite close to me.” Adam glanced towards the young man whose black leather
jacket was covered in small shiny studs. The words ‘Heil Hitler’ were printed
right across his back. He got up and pulled open the window. “Perhaps some
fresh air will help,” he said as he sat back down. In moments all four of them
were sniffing. “Sniff, sniff, sniff, sniff, I think the smell’s getting worse,”
their leader concluded.
“It must be me,” said Adam.
The sniffing stopped and the youths stared
towards the corner in disbelief – momentarily silenced by Adam’s offensive.
“I didn’t have time to take a shower after
my judo lesson,” Adam added before any of them had found time to recover their
speech.
“Any good at judo, are you?” asked the one
sitting next to him.
“Passable,” said Adam.
“What belt are you?” demanded Terry belligerently.
“Go on, tell me, a black belt, I knew it,” he added, sniggering.
“I haven’t been a black belt for nearly
eight years,” said Adam casually, “but I’ve been recently awarded my second
Dan.”
A look of apprehension came over three of
the four faces.
“I was thinkin’ about taking up judo myself,”
continued the leader, straightening his arm. “How long does it take to get any
good at it?”
“I’ve been working at it three hours a day
for nearly twelve years and I’m still not up to Olympic standard,” replied Adam
as he watched the dark-haired man in the duffle coat pass by the compartment
again. This time he stared directly at Adam before quickly moving on.
“Of course,” continued Adam, “the only
quality you really need if you are thinking of taking up judo seriously is
nerve, and no one can teach you that. You’ve either got it or you haven’t.”
“I’ve got nerve,” said Terry belligerently. “I’m
not frightened of nothin’. Or nobody,” he added, staring straight at Adam.
“Good,” said Adam. “Because you may be given
the chance to prove your claim before this journey is over.”
“What’re you getting at?” said the ‘Heil
Hitler’-clad youth. “
You trying
to pick a fight or
somethin’?”
“No,” said Adam calmly. “It’s just that at
this moment I’m being followed by a private detective who is hoping to catch me
spending the night with his client’s wife.”
The four of them sat still for the first
time during the journey and stared at Adam with something approaching respect.
“And are you?” asked the leader.
Adam nodded conspiratorially.
“Nice bit of skirt when you’ve got it in the
hay?” Terry asked, leering.
“Not bad,” said Adam, “not bad at all.”
“Then just point out this detective git and
we’ll sew him up for the night,” said the leader, thrusting his left hand on
his right bicep while pulling up his clenched fist with gusto.
“That might turn out to be overkill,” said
Adam. “But if you could delay him for a little when I get off at Waterloo
East, that
should at least give me enough time to warn the lady.”
“Say no more, squire,” said the leader. “Your
friend the Peeping Tom will be delivered to Charing Cross all trussed up like a
British Rail parcel.”
The other three youths burst out laughing
and Adam was beginning to realise that it had taken Romanov only one week to
turn him into a storyteller almost in the class of Robin’s late father.
“That’s him,” whispered Adam as the
duffle-coated man passed by a third time. They all looked out into the corridor
but only saw his retreating back.
“The train is due to arrive at Waterloo East
in eleven minutes’ time,” said Adam, checking his watch. “So what I suggest we
do is... if you still think you’re up to it, that is.” All four of his
new-found team leaned forward in eager anticipation.
A few minutes later Adam slipped out of the
compartment, leaving the door wide open. He started to walk slowly in the
direction opposite to that in which the man in the blue duffle coat had last
been seen going. When Adam reached the end of the carriage, he turned to find
the man was now following quickly behind. As he passed the open compartment the
man smiled and raised a hand to attract Adam’s attention but two leather-clad
arms shot out and the man disappeared inside the compartment with a muffled
cry. The door was slammed and the blinds pulled quickly down. The train drew
slowly into Waterloo East station.
Robin remained tense as the bus drew into
Wigmore Street and came to a halt outside the RPO headquarters. A dark green
Ford had been following them for at least thirty miles, and once she had become
aware of it she had not dared to move from her seat.
As she dragged her double bass off the bus
she looked back to see that the Ford had stopped about fifty yards down the
road and turned off its headlights. Romanov was standing on the pavement
looking like a caged animal that wanted to spring. Another man that Robin did
not recognise remained seated behind the wheel. Adam had warned her not to turn
around at any time but to walk straight into the RPO headquarters without
stopping. Even so, she couldn’t resist looking Romanov in the eye and shaking
her head. Romanov continued to stare impassively ahead of him.
When the last musician had left the bus
Romanov and ‘the Colonel’ searched up and down the inside of the vehicle and
then finally the trunk, despite noisy protests from the driver. Robin eyed them
nervously from an upstairs window, as the two of them jumped back into the
green Ford and drove off. She continued watching the car until the back lights
had faded away in the darkness.
The colonel swung out of Wigmore Street
towards Baker Street, bringing the car to a halt opposite Baker Street station.
Romanov jumped out, walked into a vacant telephone booth and started thumbing
through the A-D directory. Only one Robin Beresford was listed and it was the
same address as the young agent had read over to him. He dialled the number and
after ten unanswered rings smiled at the realisation that she lived alone. He
was not surprised.
“What now?” asked the colonel, once Romanov
was back at the car.
“Where’s Argyle Crescent, NWS?”
“Must be out towards Hampstead,” said the
colonel. “But I’ll first check in the London A to Z roadmap. What’s the plan?”
“Rather than waiting for Miss Beresford to
come out we will be waiting for her to come in,” said Romanov.
Robin slipped out of the back of the RPO
headquarters about thirty minutes later. She zig-zagged around Portman Square
then walked as quickly as she knew how up to the corner. She kept telling
herself that Romanov was not coming back, but she found it impossible to stop
herself
from shaking all the same. She hailed a taxi and was
relieved to see one draw up to her side almost immediately. She checked the
driver and the back seat, as Adam had advised her, then climbed in.
Romanov arrived at Robin’s front door a few
moments after she had hailed the taxi. The name holder on the side wall
indicated that Miss Beresford resided on the fourth floor.
The door itself would have proved no problem
to any self-respecting petty thief in Moscow and Romanov had secured entry
within moments. The colonel quickly joined him before they proceeded silently
up the dark staircase to the fourth floor.
Romanov slipped the Yale lock faster than
Robin could have opened it with her own key. Once inside he quickly checked the
layout of the room and assured himself no one else was in the flat.
The colonel stood around fidgeting. “Settle
down, Colonel. I don’t expect the lady will keep us waiting too long.” The
colonel laughed nervously.
The taxi drew up outside the house that
Robin pointed to. She then jumped out and tipped the cabbie extra because the
bewitching hour had long passed and at last she felt safe. It seemed ages since
she had been home. All she was looking forward to now was a hot bath and a good
night’s sleep.
Adam stepped off the train at Waterloo East
a little after midnight and was pleased to find the underground was still
running. He had avoided going on to Charing Cross, as he couldn’t be sure which
side would have a reception committee waiting for him. He produced a season
ticket for the West Indian on the ticket barrier and waited around on the
underground platform for some time before the train eventually drew in.
There were several stations between Waterloo
and his destination, and even at this time of night there seemed to be a
prolonged stop at every one. Several late-night revellers got in at the
Embankment, more still at Leicester Square. Adam waited nervously at each
station, now aware that he must have caught the last train. He only hoped Robin
had carried out his instructions faithfully. He looked around the carriage he
was sitting in. It was full of night people, waiters, nurses, party returners,
drunks
– even a traffic warden. The train eventually pulled
into his station, at twelve forty.