The Opel went suddenly right into Tempest Street, and when Harpur followed, he could see no moving vehicles ahead. For a moment, he feared he had fallen too far back, and that Sarah and Tommy
had already left from the other end of the road. Panicked, he was about to accelerate up to the junction when he saw a woman who might be Sarah about a hundred yards off on foot, walking away from
him with the striding, sexy, confident lope which was one of her trademarks. Immediately, he pulled into the side and watched her. Soon afterwards, he picked out the Panda parked far up on the
other side of the road. A little way behind, but separated from it by several vehicles, stood the Opel, its lights already out.
Sarah turned and ran up the front path of one of the biggest houses and seemed to open the door with a key. She disappeared inside. Immediately then, a man in a long, dark trenchcoat and with a
lot of rather gorgeous fair, wavy hair left the Opel and walked unhurriedly towards the house. As Harpur remembered them, the squat build and the layered hair were right for Tommy Vit, and the
disarming leisureliness with which he moved. For a moment, he paused in front of the closed door, then bent over the lock, with what could have been a credit card in his hand. In a second he had
opened the door and went in after her.
Harpur left the car and approached the house, taking cover behind a parked van. In a ground-floor room he could see an elderly woman lit up by the silver light of a television set, the way
three-quarters of humanity continually exhibited itself these days. The floor above seemed totally dark. A young woman and a small child were looking from a window on the storey above that, Harpur
decided that Aston, if it was Aston, must be in the attics; two rooms up there had lights showing.
He thought it would be wisest to wait though until Vit left. That should be all right; Tommy was a tail and only turned violent when cornered, or so the dossier said, and the dossiers were
sometimes right. His job here would be simply to find Aston, and then tell Benny where he was, strictly a pathfinder. Sarah and her lover were probably in no danger yet, and there would be time to
warn them to get out. And time to go with them. That was crucial. He did not want Aston to disappear again. Harpur remained behind the van but prepared himself for some very rapid movement, in case
what he saw or heard showed he had read things badly.
After about ten minutes the door opened and Vit came out at the same relaxed pace, made for his car and drove away. He would be reporting to Loxton now what he had found, either on a car phone,
or from the first workable booth he came to. His job was over, and it must have been soft money; follow the girl, get an identification of Aston when he opened the door upstairs, observe the layout
of the house, make a decent guess at how the rooms were arranged, then brief Benny on the lot. He and his people would come immediately, but Vit would not hang about to watch the action or take
part. His chief objects now must be to get well clear and put an alibi together. Tommy was a specialist, and the demarcation understanding would be that his fee did not require him to carry out or
watch executions.
Harpur left the Astra and went down a side lane to reach the back of the house. Even in this road, the fire regulations would demand an escape and he had decided to get in that way, if he could.
Perhaps there were bells at the front door and perhaps Aston would answer if he rang the right one. But perhaps he would not. This was a man lying low and expecting no callers, except the one
already there, who had a key. Some more would certainly be on the way very soon. Tommy could be delivering the invitation at this moment.
Harpur began to climb the escape, moving swiftly and moving quietly, he hoped. It did not matter all that much because he was here mainly to offer help. They ought to be pleased to see him.
At the top storey, the escape became a simple metal ladder leading to a platform outside an unlighted window, with curtains partly across. He went up the ladder and rested for a moment on the
platform, then moved close to the window and tried to see inside through the curtain gap. It was a rough bedroom, but, as far as he could make out, unoccupied, thank God. Sarah was entitled to her
love sessions, with anyone she liked or loved, but he did not want to arrive in the middle of one, like a divorce snoop. The aim was to look after her, not frighten her frigid. He tried the window
but it did not budge. He would have to force the catch, and brought out his pocket knife. This simple burgling skill he had learned years ago, and should be easy enough in this old house, where the
wooden frames were getting soft.
While he worked there he thought suddenly that he had heard someone below in the rear yard, and he paused while he listened and looked down. But he located nobody. Intent on speed, he turned
back to the window. And then, just as he felt the catch move, the curtains were violently pulled fully open and a flashlight beam from inside the room blinded him momentarily. Someone flung up the
window and a man said: ‘You? Harpur? Why you? You’re in with them? Where are the other bastards?’ A large-calibre pistol was pointed at him and he remained very still, crouched
low on the platform. There seemed something familiar about the shadowy figure holding the weapon but, for the moment, he could not identify it, nor the voice.
From behind him, he was aware of another man coming fast up the ladder. He snarled at Harpur: ‘Keep still. You’re covered all ways. Where’s the rest? Where?’
‘It’s fucking police,’ the man in the room said. ‘Harpur.’
‘Police? How police?’ the other man grunted anxiously. ‘Police, how many? This is a set-up?’
Now, Harpur did recognize them. ‘It’s Leo, yes?’ Harpur asked the man in the room. Without too much success he tried to keep the astonishment and wonder out of his voice.
‘And Lay-waste – I mean, Anthony.’
‘Get in,’ Lay-waste said. ‘Into the room.’
Before Harpur could move, though, Leo thrust his small thin body out through the window and searched him quickly for a gun. ‘Nothing.’
‘Nothing?’ Lay-waste said, sounding enraged. ‘What the hell is this? You come here clean, a situation like this? You mad or something?’
Harpur jumped into the room. Lay-waste came in after him but then turned and stared back down to the yard, searching.
‘I’m alone,’ Harpur said.
‘You’re in this with Benny?’ Leo asked, his voice disbelieving. ‘You take from Benny? You police taking from Benny? But I thought –’
‘I told you you couldn’t trust the bastards, and that one bastard above all. Christ, you people, you police, you want a bit of everything,’ Lay-waste said. He was bigger than
Leo, taller and bulkier, with thick hands, a pointed nose and thin, and sallow, sick-looking skin. He was wearing a navy flak jacket.
‘So where is he? Which way are they coming?’ Leo asked. Harpur saw he was trembling and had trouble getting his words out.
‘Where?’ Lay-waste demanded again in a sort of shrieked, scared whisper and, through the darkness, Harpur could make out his arm raised with the pistol in it, as if about to deliver
a blow. Then he seemed to change his mind and brought the gun down to his side.
Slowly, his mind still half-baffled and dazed by shock, Harpur had begun to work out what was happening. ‘You’ve got an ambush, with Aston as bait?’ Harpur said.
‘You’d heard about Tommy Vit and knew Sarah would lead him here, and he’d bring Loxton. Now, you wait for Benny. So, how did you hear about Tommy?’
The door of the bedroom was pushed open and light from beyond reached in. Leo’s other boy, Gerald, stood there and stared at Harpur. ‘Christ, you with them?’ He turned to Leo
and spoke very fast. The two of them were thin and small and big-nosed and bald and might have been brothers, rather than father and son. ‘The rest are here, in the street. Four; Benny,
Macey, Norman and the new one – the telescopic sight. They’re kitted out. Well, you’d expect. Two handguns, two sawn-offs.’
In the adjoining room behind Gerald, Harpur could see Aston and Sarah sitting upright and stiff, both looking mystified and very afraid. Maybe she had known she would get caught in something
like this one day if she went on looking for the risks and the shadows. Yet, although the fear certainly lay there for all to see in her face, pulling her skin tight and making her eyes shine too
much, it was not panic. She looked bad, but she also looked as if she could cope. She was still Sarah Iles.
‘How are they coming in? Leo asked Harpur urgently. ‘Are they following you, up the escape? You’re the way ahead, supposed to let them in?’
‘I’m alone,’ Harpur told him again.
‘Alone? Oh, Christ, come on,’ Gerald said.
‘So, alone wanting what?’ Lay-waste asked. They were all whispering now.
‘Wanting to look after Sarah Iles,’ Harpur told him.
Again Lay-waste raised the pistol, a 9 mm Browning, and this time cracked the barrel down on the side of Harpur’s head. He staggered but did not fall. Blood began to run down his face and
on to his collar. ‘Stop pissing me about,’ Lay-waste said.
‘Leave it,’ Leo told him. ‘There are other things.’
‘He knows how many people, where they are,’ Lay-waste said. ‘We have to make him tell us, and what he’s doing here, really what he’s doing here.’
‘It’s too late. We deal with it, whatever it is,’ Leo told him. ‘Harpur, we’re defending ourselves here, understand? No option.’ He spoke as if foreseeing
some court case where Harpur would give evidence, and he hoped this was right, particularly the idea that he might survive.
‘Colin,’ Sarah said. ‘Are you okay? Come and sit down.’ She was about to stand and bring him across the room, but Lay-waste swore and told her to remain still.
‘Yes, sit down,’ Leo told Harpur. ‘Stay out of this. You mean it, there are no other police? All we’re dealing with is Benny and his crew.’ Harpur pinpointed a
slight tremor of hope in his voice.
Another two of Leo’s people appeared in the room, both carrying handguns. Harpur recognized Ashley Simpson, the one they called In-off, but did not know the other: younger, plumper, and
with the sort of face made to look through bars.
‘They’re coming up the escape,’ Simpson said. ‘And one waiting at the front door – Norman.’
‘We’re being hunted, Harpur. You see that? We offered friendship, and we’re being hunted, instead,’ Leo said. Sweat shone on the round, bald head and along the ridge of
his jutting nose. Again he appeared to be anticipating a reckoning, and preparing ways to make the best of it. But, no, they weren’t hunted. They had set a trap.
‘What are you doing here, Colin?’ Sarah said. She sounded as she looked, very frightened, very defeated. ‘How?’ He could see that what she wanted to ask was whether Iles
knew, even whether Iles was here, too.
But she did not ask, and he made no attempt to answer. ‘We’ll be all right,’ Harpur replied. ‘Keep still.’
‘Yes, listen to what he says,’ Gerald told her and Aston. ‘Just stay out of it.’
Because they had the door open to this living room, there would be light showing from the window over the escape now. Unless they hid themselves carefully the light would show up anyone waiting
in the bedroom, and they could not count on the sort of surprise Leo had when he confronted Harpur. Four of them went into the bedroom: Leo, Lay-waste, Gerald and Simpson. The other man stayed with
Harpur, Sarah and Aston. Harpur had not heard Aston speak yet, but now he said: ‘They made me do this. Made me get Sarah to lead them here. She didn’t know.’
‘Did
you
tell Leo about Tommy Vit?’
‘I didn’t know he was involved. Leo says Vit was spotted outside Sarah’s house.’
‘Spotted? Who by?’
Aston glanced at Sarah. ‘Someone who wanted me out of the way. That’s where Leo’s tip came from.’
Harpur left it there, and did not press for Iles’s name. Christ, though, if Leo was being tipped by Iles and thought police cooperation had been sweetly arranged, no wonder he sounded sick
to find Harpur here, apparently footsoldiering for Benny. Routine treachery Leo would always cater for – that was life – but this must look like the darkest sell ever, even for Iles.
So, when Lay-waste talked about ‘that one bastard’ he had meant the ACC.
Harpur could see the four men in the bedroom, all with pistols in their hands, standing flat against the wall on each side of the window, so they would be invisible for at least the first few
key seconds when Benny and his people arrived on the platform. Lay-waste was to the side of the drawn-back curtains and must be able to see part of the way down the escape. The others watched him,
trying to read the signs in his face and body.
The man on guard had produced a pistol and turned it towards them. ‘No noise,’ he whispered, ‘No warnings. You understand?’
Harpur nodded, and a small shower of blood fell from his head on to his trouser leg. ‘Don’t worry.’
All the same, the guard pulled a straight-backed chair around behind Sarah’s for himself and sat with the muzzle of the pistol resting on her shoulder and pointed into her neck.
‘We understand,’ Harpur said. ‘You needn’t do that.’
‘I’ll say what I fucking need.’
She gave a very small, stiff grin at Harpur, trying to tell him not to worry. He worried.
It grew very quiet. Harpur strove to hear the sound of footsteps on the escape, but detected nothing. In the bedroom, Leo and his people kept motionless and seemed hardly to be breathing, making
no noise. Lay-waste was tilted slightly forward, surveying as much as he could of the escape. Were Benny and his lads already on the way up? Harpur had no way of knowing. The rest of them in the
bedroom still studied Lay-waste, using him as eyes.
The danger was that this terrifying silence would stretch and stretch, loading the strain on to everyone’s nerves, and then there might come a sudden end when the firing and the yelling
and the cursing and, maybe, the screaming began. What was his control like, the bloody tub nobody with the pistol on Sarah’s neck? His finger was hooked around the trigger, and his eyes spent
part of their time anxiously watching the bedroom group for signs of what was happening, then would switch back and stare at Harpur and Aston and say without more words that if either of them
shifted Sarah would die. He looked about thirty, fair, jail pale, dim, jumpy, out of his depth and probably not someone who learned at Sandhurst how to make a safe job of handling small-arms.