Run for Home (4 page)

The voice was tired and distant-sounding.

‘Yes?’

No identifiers, he noted with a wry smile. Old habits.

‘You told me to call you – anytime.’

He let that lie for a moment, time for it to sink in, his voice to be recognized.

‘It’s been a long time. How are you?’

A little interest had crept into the voice. That was encouraging.

‘Troubled. I was wondering if it would be extremely inconvenient for me to visit you?’

Short pause; then:

‘When? Today? Now?’

The voice was sharper now, sleep perhaps being pushed back, along with the covers.

‘If possible. I’m not far away, you see.’

‘And it’s urgent, I assume?’

‘Very.’

‘You don’t know where I live, do you?’

The voice was getting crisper by the minute.

‘No.’

‘Brackenrigg Cottage, Nether Wasdale.’ Pause to glance at
watch or clock. ‘Say about eleven?’

‘Fine. See you then.’

He was about to add a pleasantry, but Callerton had switched off. Brief and to the point. Old habits again.

The timing of recent events was niggling away at him. So, soon after 7 a.m., he rang the farm, knowing the working day would be well underway by then. Mrs Ainslie, who together with her husband owned the place, answered.

‘Oh, Mr Gibson! Terrible news, I’m afraid. I was wondering how we could contact you.’

‘Mrs Ainslie?’

‘The caravan – your caravan! It burned down. It’s gone, I’m afraid. There’s nothing left.’

He expressed astonishment.

‘How did it happen, Mrs. Ainslie?’

‘We don’t know. We have no idea. We only wish we did. The fire service and the police have both been to investigate, and we’re expecting them back again today. But they haven’t said anything about what they’ve discovered.’

‘Nobody hurt, I hope, Mrs Ainsley?’

‘No, thank God! None of the caravans are occupied at the moment.’

‘So there’s been nobody there, on site?’

‘No one at all, the past week or two. My husband thought he might have heard a car the other night, just after it got dark. And there seemed to be fresh tyre tracks in the morning, but we didn’t see anyone. It’s a bit scary, actually. We can’t understand what’s happened. And we’re so very sorry, Mr Gibson.’

‘It’s not your fault. Don’t you worry about that, Mrs Ainslie. So when did the … the fire happen, exactly?’

Just in time he had stopped himself saying ‘attack’ – when
had the attack happened?

‘Wednesday night, early on. We heard an explosion, and then there were flames shooting into the sky. Whether it was a gas bottle….’

‘Probably.’

But unlikely, he thought grimly. Not the initial spark, anyway. Not the cause of it.

‘Well, never mind, Mrs Ainslie. It was an old van and there was nothing of great value in it. I’ll get the insurance company to contact you about a replacement. If that’s all right with you?’

‘Yes, of course it is. We’re just so sorry this has happened, Mr Gibson.’

Not as sorry as I am, he noted grimly as he switched off. My best climbing boots were in that caravan.

Wednesday night then, he thought afterwards, drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. That was what he had wanted to establish. The bastards had certainly moved fast. Even before he was back in the country.

Firing the caravan had saved them time, as well as denying him the use of whatever he might have had in it. Searching it instead could have taken them hours, as well as making them visible.

He parked outside one of the two pubs in the tiny hamlet of Nether Wasdale. Then he took a stroll. It would be better to find Callerton’s cottage himself, rather than leave someone with the memory of him asking where it was. By now, he had given up worrying that he might be being overly cautious. In his position, there was no such thing as too much caution.

He soon found the cottage. It was a few minutes’ walk from the pub, down a lane that seemingly led nowhere very
much. He smiled. Typical of Cally! Leaving London hadn’t been enough. He had sought obscurity and isolation – and found them both.

It was a grand spot, he reflected, as he stood at the gate a moment and gazed around. Perfect; the fells, the lake, the ancient sycamores gnarled and twisted by wind and snow. Well deserved, too. Callerton had done his bit for Queen and Country, and then some.

He opened the gate and walked up the path towards the open front door. The old man would be ready for him. He always had been big on time keeping. Coffee would be ready, too, probably. Nothing alcoholic yet, though. Unless his habits had changed in retirement, that wouldn’t happen until lunch was on the table.

He used the heavy door-knocker and eased the door further open, calling a greeting. There was no reply. Smiling, he paused, listening. Nothing. The silence continued. He called again, louder this time. Still nothing.

Alarm bells began to ring in his head. He frowned and stepped back. He brought out the Glock he had brought from Prague and checked it.

Cally wouldn’t do this, he was thinking. The old man wouldn’t fail to respond to a visitor’s greeting. He wouldn’t not be in either, not when an arrangement had been made and his visitor was exactly on time. He would be here, ready and waiting. Something was wrong.

He moved along the side of the house and looked through a window into what seemed to be the main living room. No one there. He moved on. Round the next corner was the kitchen window. He looked through it, winced and felt sick. He closed his eyes for a moment.

Callerton was there. He was slumped over the kitchen
table, immobile, in no position to receive visitors ever again.

The back of his head was a mess. Even from the window he could see that. A bullet, almost certainly, and whoever had fired it had been standing right behind him.

So they’d got here before him. Christ, they’d been quick off the mark – again!

It couldn’t have been Jackson and Murphy, though. They hadn’t had time to get off Orkney and down here, even if they had known this was where he was coming. Someone else, then. Another team. Or just one man. Less suspicious. The arrival of a team might have alerted Callerton.

The question was, where was the gunman now? Here still? If not, then not long gone. There hadn’t been time. Quite possibly still around, waiting for him to arrive.

He glanced back round the corner of the cottage. No one had appeared to seal off his exit route. He hesitated, weighing up his options. They were limited and straightforward: either he left immediately or he took a look inside first.

He thought quickly. There was just a faint chance the old man might have prepared something that might help. So he’d better chance it, and look inside before he left.

He wiped his face with his sleeve and checked the gun again. Then he headed back to the front door and stepped into the front porch, calling out as if he was unaware anything was wrong.

The cottage was small. Two storeys, with probably only two rooms upstairs. The gunman, if he hadn’t already departed, wouldn’t be upstairs. The priority spaces were all down below. The living room. The kitchen. What else was there? Probably a scullery. Possibly a separate dining room, but it would be a small one.

‘Cally?’

He called again and rattled about a bit in the porch. Then he laid down on the floor and eased his head around the living room door. Nothing. No one. He slid slowly into the room on his belly, and lay still.

As well as cupboards, a dresser, and free-standing bookshelves, there was an old, upright-style, three-piece suite on wooden legs. From his position on the floor, he could see the legs of a man kneeling behind the settee. The gunman had not left.

He pushed the door hard, forcing it back to crash against the wall. A man leapt up from behind the settee, arms braced to fire the gun he was holding.

There was no time, no time for anything at all. The air filled with dust, as bullets hit the wall and the door, where he should have been standing. Harry fired, and kept on firing until the gun pointing at him flew through the air, and the man who had been holding it slumped to the floor.

He scrambled across the room, ears ringing, pulse racing, and kicked the dropped gun aside. Then he stooped and felt for a pulse: there wasn’t one.

He straightened up and took a few moments to recover and let his pulse rate begin to drop back down. He wriggled his shoulders and stretched, working some of the tension out of his body. Then he leaned down again to see what he had shot.

The man was a stranger to him. Perhaps 30-ish, shorthaired and tidy-looking. He wore jeans and a casual outdoor jacket. There was nothing in his pockets to say who or what he was; only car keys and spare ammunition. All in all, that was a pretty good indication of who or what he was. Leave no trace. That was a cardinal rule for the cleaners.

A minute or two had elapsed by then, and no one else had appeared. He stood up and went quickly though the cottage,
room by room, satisfying himself that no one else was in the building. It seemed to have been a one-man operation, as he had guessed. Not top notch either. They had just sent whoever was available and could get here in time.

But why? What the hell was it about? This seemed even more senseless than the killings in Prague. Cally was not a player, not any more. He’d been out of it for several years. He shook his head, feeling utterly depressed. He had liked the old man. Respected him, as well. His murder now was so pointless.

Pulling himself together, he took stock of what he knew and could see. Cally must have accepted his killer’s credentials. He would never have let the man inside the cottage otherwise.

Perhaps consultations with people from the department had still happened from time to time? It wasn’t impossible. Cally was – had been – a living archive. They might well have needed to consult him occasionally.

He returned to the kitchen and studied the scene there. Callerton was seated at the table. It looked as though he had been going through his morning’s paper,
The Times,
when the bullet had arrived. He had been waiting; waiting for his eleven o’clock visitor.

He glanced at the open page, grimaced and shook his head. Pen in hand, Cally had been reading an article on Siberian gas fields in the business section. He had even circled the subheading. Keeping an eye on his investments?

A last glance around. Then he turned and made his way outside and headed back towards the car. There was nothing here for him now. Nothing at all. Perhaps there wouldn’t have been anyway. It was doubtful if Cally had still been in the loop.

But in that case why had he been murdered?

And surely it was no coincidence that the shooting had happened shortly before he himself had been due to arrive to talk to him? No, of course it bloody wasn’t! They must have known he was coming. They would have been monitoring the phone.

Not his phone, though. Cally’s. He himself had used a cheap, disposable phone, and got rid of it as soon as the call was finished. It would have been Cally’s that they had been monitoring.

They had probably guessed he might try to contact the old man. Once he had actually done that, they must have decided it was an opportunity to get rid of them both; himself and Cally.

But he couldn’t even begin to guess as to why. No idea at all.

He shook his head. What was more, try as he might, he couldn’t get one step ahead of them. So far, they had anticipated his every move. They were boxing him in.

At least they still didn’t know about Lisa. He faltered. They didn’t, did they? Surely not?

He realized then that he had no idea. He shivered and suddenly felt very cold. Until now, he had assumed that if he kept away from Lisa, and didn’t contact her, she would be safe. Now he just didn’t know any more. It was terrifying.

He headed back to Northumberland on automatic pilot. There was nowhere else he could think of going. He returned to The Running Man, a place with which he had no known connection, and where nobody knew him. The one night he had spent there lingered in his memory now as a time of peace and tranquillity.

They seemed glad to see him again, especially Ellie.

‘We don’t get a lot of visitors at this time of year,’ she admitted. ‘So you can have the same room, if you like.’

He took it.

‘Mr Gibson, isn’t it?’

He nodded and smiled. That would do for now. His passport, the one he was using at present, said different, but by now he could scarcely recall the name he’d started out with. What was in a name, anyway?

But he kept ‘Harry’. That would always be with him. You had to have something to cling to.

‘It’s Harry,’ he volunteered.

She nodded, as if that explained a lot.

‘Harry,’ she repeated.

The night was a difficult one. He didn’t feel under immediate
threat, not here, but his head was in turmoil. He knew now for sure that he was deep in trouble. There was no longer any possibility of it all being a mistake, or of him being an innocent bystander. He was in the middle of it, even if he had no idea why. He was alone too, more alone than he had ever been.

There had been four of them in Unit 89, the special unit Callerton had set up after the Soviet withdrawal from Central Europe. He was now the only one left, and if they got him as well, it would be as if Unit 89 had never existed. He doubted there would even be a paper trail for future historians to follow; there would be nothing, nothing at all.

And he really was out on a limb. No personal contact with London any more, not since Callerton had retired. Callerton’s immediate successor had soon moved on, and now he didn’t even know the name of the man who had taken his place. All his reports went via cut-outs, when they didn’t simply go by post or electronic transmission. Landis had been the only one with direct, face-to-face contact. And now he had a hole in the back of his head, like the other members of Unit 89.

The elimination of the unit? Harry blinked with surprise as the thought registered. Was that what this was about? The elimination of Unit 89? Could that be the explanation?

Surely not? It was an absurd notion, but no more so than what had been happening these past several days. Whoever would have thought any of it possible?

His attempts to make sense of it all won him a sleepless night. It was dawn when finally he got to sleep, and then he missed breakfast and had to settle for lunch instead.

‘It’s no problem,’ Ellie said when finally he made his way downstairs. ‘Nothing’s spoiling, and you needed some sleep.’

She gave him a happy smile and added, ‘Order what you
like. The chef is longing to cook something for somebody. So what’s it going to be – bacon and eggs, or steak and chips?’

He settled for the lamb stew that topped the lunch menu that day.

‘You’re very easy-going here,’ he added.

‘I’m afraid we are. Some might think it a fault, but I don’t suppose we’ll ever change.’

He laughed. ‘The whole village is like that, is it?’

‘It is. I don’t think you would like it at all.’

‘Oh?’

‘Well, you obviously lead a very busy life, rushing here, there and everywhere – and never getting enough sleep!’

‘It’s been like that lately,’ he admitted, ‘but it’s not what I would choose. Easy-going would suit me very well indeed.’

‘Would it really?’ she asked mischievously before sweeping away to see to new customers in the dining room.

Really, he thought wearily. In another life.

Afterwards, he took a stroll around the village. In other circumstances, he thought again, he could have been happy with what he saw here; the village green, the river, the ancient, gnarled trees, and the little school where he could hear children playing in the yard during their lunch break. He was out of touch these days with metropolitan England, but this England he could relate to very easily. At least, he would have been able to if his head hadn’t been full of questions, and pictures of dead bodies.

He spent a little time thinking about Jackson and Murphy. So far as he could see, there was no way they could find him here. Not unless he made a mistake and unwittingly brought them to his door. To all intents and purposes, he was off the map so long as he remained here and contacted nobody.

He toyed with the idea of staying, and finding somewhere in the village to live. Fantasy, perhaps, but it had its attractions. He could do it. Live here. Maybe even bring Lisa, in time. Then, when the money ran out, he could get a little job. Deliver mail, or help look after sheep. There was bound to be something he could do. Work in the local abattoir, he thought sourly. He’d be good at that.

An estate agent’s window caught and held his attention for a few minutes. There were places to rent as well as to buy, and often at prices that didn’t seem absurd. One, in particular, caught his eye: Bracken Cottage, with three bedrooms, a mile outside the village centre. Roses at the door? he wondered with a smile.

But perhaps he would be better off with somewhere actually in the village; a cottage or a flat with more immediate access to whatever services were available here. The pub notably, he thought with another smile. Oh, well. One day, perhaps. It was something to dream about.

The trouble was, staying here wouldn’t answer any of his questions. There were no answers in this village, pleasant and safe as it was, and he wasn’t ready to settle for that. He needed to know what was going on. He needed to see Lisa, as well, but that would have to wait a while. It was too risky and dangerous. Forget that, for now.

Back at the hotel, he picked up another of his disposable phones and began to punch in the numbers. Once he got started, he found he could remember the sequence easily. But there was no reply when he pressed send. He frowned, put down the phone and had another think. Then he began to pack. It was time to go.

‘You’re not leaving already?’ Ellie said, visibly disappointed.

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘That’s a pity. It was so nice to have a guest,’ she said with a chuckle. ‘It makes a change for us all.’

He smiled. ‘I’d like to come back,’ he said.

‘Please do.’

‘I might look at some of the properties in the estate agent’s window,’ he added, wanting to extend the conversation.

‘Oh?’ She looked searchingly at him, not smiling now. ‘You really do like it here, don’t you?’

‘Yes, I do.’ He stared back at her, knowing then that something was going on between them. ‘I’d like to see you again, Ellie, as well. You’ll still be here?’

She nodded. ‘I’ll be here. I have to be. It’s my hotel.’

Then she leant forward and brushed his cheek with her lips.

‘Take care,’ she said, looking worried now, and for all the world as if she understood the signs and realized he had an uncertain future, ringed by danger.

He crossed the Channel from Dover to Dunkirk that night, and didn’t care if they discovered he had left the country again. Hopefully, it would just seem that he had left because inside its borders he had not found the safe haven he had sought. They would have no idea where he was bound.

Back in Prague, he kept well away from Vyšehrad. He had no intention of going anywhere near the safe house or the flat where he had lived in recent months. He didn’t believe in tempting fate.

The first night he booked into a pension just off Karlovo Náměstí – Charles Square – in the university area. He felt he ought to be safe enough there for one night. But he still took
the gun to bed with him. Somewhere, back there, Jackson and Murphy would be on his trail. And if not them, then others. He was a marked man.

The room was small and overheated. He opened the window and listened to the night sounds: the crowds and the trams, the traffic, and somewhere the sound of a traditional jazz band playing joyously. It felt surprisingly good to be back, back in this city he knew so well. Familiarity was a great comfort. For a time, it took away thoughts of what had happened here, and of what he had to do.

He dozed for an hour or so. After midnight, the crowds dispersed, the traffic stopped and most of the trams went home for a few hours, leaving only the hourly night service to rumble between the buildings. Then, at last, he could sleep properly.

In the morning, he ate breakfast in a nearby café, choosing sliced cheese and salami to go with the traditional Turkish-style coffee that came in the equally traditional glass mug without handles. Afterwards, he took a tram out to Strašnická.

It was a dismal journey, out beyond the areas tourists never reached, past the old, run-down blocks of flats and the dilapidated industrial premises, and into the zone of shabby blocks of workers’ flats built in the 1960s and 70s. Beautiful Prague it was not. Strašnická was an area, one of many in the outlying districts, that didn’t feature in the guide books and the celebratory videos. It was as bad, he reflected, as the train journey through north London.

His fellow passengers didn’t include anyone who looked like a potential assassin. No Jackson or Murphy types, not that appearances counted for much in that regard. Still. … He stayed alert, vigilant.

Mostly, the others in his tram were either young women with infants or elderly people, the latter often infirm of mind or body, and sometimes both. Everyone else would be at work. He eyed and almost welcomed the bearded, smelly tramp who planted himself in a nearby seat. Definitely not department material, he thought with an inner smile.

Once a separate place in its own right, Strašnická had a New Town and an Old Town. He left the tram in the Old Town, a busy shopping area with a department store and plenty of little cafés and family-owned shops. It was a working-class, industrial area, very definitely. And he felt better here, better than since the trouble had started. He was back in the world he had long inhabited, and the familiarity of it was like a tonic. Here, he could drift invisibly, and with the growing confidence that came with anonymity.

He made his way out of the shopping precinct and walked steadily past several large blocks of flats. He knew where he was going. He only hoped this little bit of the world hadn’t changed since his last visit.

Kosmonauto 68. He was here. This was it, the address. He walked up to the entrance to the ten-storey block of flats and studied the names of the tenants alongside the buttons for the buzzers on their individual front doors.

There it was! She was still here. His finger moved to the button alongside the name: Novotná.