第 12 页

Dazed, confused and in a great deal of pain, she had begged forgiveness. Wrong. He'd thought she was strong, he'd respected her for that. Now he knew she was weak.

She should have fought back. He shot her cleanly up through the chin, spreading her brain all over the bed-sheets.

He grabbed a few clothes, threw them into a bag and left. He never went back.

He found out that a neighbour, alerted a day later by the whining of their Alsatian, had called the police. Finding her body with his blood-soaked fingerprints all over her had given them all the evidence they needed; and the riffing on the bullet connected him to a dozen more murders. But by that time he was already in Brazil, and he kept moving.

The blond man stayed abroad for six or seven years, shifting from country to country, selling his services to anyone who could pay. Rich gangsters, South American governments, and even the American intelligence forces utilized his talents at times. He took their money and their equipment, and honed his skills until he believed there was no one better than him.

It had been one of his contacts in the CIA who had told him that if he returned to Britain, instead of the arrest he anticipated, the blond man would be welcomed by various parties. His safety would be guaranteed. The money offered was excellent. But it was the guns he was promised, the range and capabilities of them, that clinched the offer.

Taking as few risks as possible, the blond man flew into Manchester airport with black hair and a false passport. As promised, he was greeted by a man whose name he had never asked. He accepted jobs as and when they were offered, comfortable in the knowledge that the police were unable to touch him.

Now, he had been given the task of killing the man known as the Doctor, somewhere in or around Smallmarshes. It had looked like a simple job: trail the target, kill him in a remote spot, weight the body and dump it at sea. What had gone wrong, he never understood. The Doctor had gone into the deserted cottage just after midnight, and never came out. The blond man had waited half an hour before following him in, but there was no sign, trail or trace of the target. The blond man had watched the cottage all night, but when a police car arrived early the following morning he gave up and returned to London. He had been denied a kill, and he was puzzled and seething. His nameless contact, a scarred, pale young man who always wore a suit and dark glasses, met him at London Bridge station. The car that had dropped him in Smallmarshes was waiting for them outside the station, the silent Nigerian in the driver's seat, and they drove over the bridge, then westwards through London. As they headed along the Embankment, the pale young man passed him a photograph.

'This man is your next target. He's not a villain. Well, within reason; he is a member of Her Majesty's Government. So security's going to be tight on this one.' The pale young man shifted slightly, leaning over the blond man's shoulder. 'We need him dead because someone is on our tail, trying to do our work for us and getting everything in a right old tizzy as a result.'

'I don't need to know that.' The blond man studied the corpulent figure in the photograph, memorizing every detail of face and build. His pale companion appeared not to have heard him, and continued.

'With this poor man dead, we can heap the blame wholly onto Sir Marmaduke Harrington-Smythe CB bloody E, close down his little entourage and make life better for everyone. Plus the Glasshouse got hold of our policewoman before we could. Made quite a kerfuffle, I understand, at Hastings General. We need to expose them for that as well.'

As they turned right, then left into Parliament Square, the blond man stared up at the House of Commons. 'In there?'

'In there,' his companion confirmed.

'When?'

'Three o'clock this afternoon.'

'That's cutting it tight. Not much time for preparation.'

The pale man turned to him, his expression implacable. 'Can you do it?'

'No problem.' He patted his case.

The chauffeur pulled over in front of Westminster Abbey and the blond man got out. His strange employer unwound the car window.

'By the way. The Doctor?'

The blond man did not even pause. 'Job done. UNIT will be needing a new scientific advisor.' He picked his bag up, and walked down past the Methodist Central Hall and left into Petty France. He was soon just a part of the crowd, along with the tourists and visitors to the passport office. He entered St James's Park underground station and headed back to his tiny bed-sit in Notting Hill, preparing mentally and physically for his next job.

---

The moment Liz put the key into the front door of her flat, she felt a chill. As if someone had just walked over her grave, as the saying went.

She pushed the door open - something was blocking it. Letters. Circulars. A massive clothing catalogue of the sort that the previous tenant obviously thrived upon, because a different one seemed to appear every week. No matter how many times Liz rang or wrote to the companies, the catalogues kept coming.

She added it to the pile next to the phone and scooped up the rest of the post. Obviously Mrs Longhurst, her landlady who lived in the flat below, had not been in here for some time.

The Doctor, Liz recalled, had once offered Liz the use of a flat he owned in Soho, but central London didn't appeal to her. Born and bred in the Home Counties, Liz preferred the outskirts of the city to being in its heart. Besides which, the Dean Street flat was far too noisy and cramped, and she could never have kept a pet there.

She wandered into her living room, flicking through the various letters, tossing the circulars into the round waste-paper basket without a second glance, and following them with a couple of postcards of foreign climes, with trite clich閟 scrawled on the back. Liz abhorred clutter and saw no purpose in pinning up colourful photographs, twenty years out of date, from Rhodes or Egypt in her kitchenette.

Beside a rarely used black-and-white television that Mrs Longhurst had supplied, rattled a cage with a guinea-pig in it. Regularly fed and watered, more by Mrs Longhurst than by Liz, she was ashamed to say, John-Paul clearly wanted some attention. Liz wasn't an animal person at heart, but when she had first moved to London, a well-meaning Cambridge friend had bought her the two guinea-pigs as a house-warming gift.

One, Ringo-George, died soon after the move, and Liz found herself needing to keep the other more as a reminder of life at Cambridge and her friends up there, than out of any real liking for it as a companion.

Yet as it stared up at her now, Liz felt a rush of affection flood over her and she bent over, lifted the lid off the cage and scooped up the little bundle of fur, feeling it squirm and kick in her hand. She raised it to eye level and blew a kiss at it, adding a few silly noises for good measure. 'Aren't you the most beautiful guinea-pig in the world, then?'

People had told her that keeping a pet was a good way of relieving stress. She'd never taken it seriously until, as she flopped onto the sofa, she let John-Paul wriggle on her lap for a second, as he got comfortable.

'No, don't get settled,' she said. 'I want a cup of tea, if you don't mind.'

It was too late: John-Paul was breathing deeply, fast asleep, and she could not bring herself to disturb him. He looked so tranquil that she could feel his simple happiness spreading into her too.

She was definitely getting soft in her old age. Reaching across to the coffee table, careful not to up-end the animal, she used her fingertips to slowly drag the letters towards her. When they were close enough, she grabbed them and leant back, flicking through the pile. The first had a typed address, and a look at the back told her it was from her bank. 'Later.' The next was in the familiar handwriting of Jeff Johnson.

'Sorry, but a long lecture about my life, ruts, and lack of direction I don't need right now,' she said, putting it to the back. The third envelope was also hand-written but she didn't recognize the writing, and she was about to open it when she saw another, addressed in the same writing further down the pile. She compared them and opened the one that had come three days before the other.

Dear Doctor Shaw,

I shall keep this brief. My friend Grant Traynor and I are very worried about the activities of C19. You probably know them as the liaison between the British Government, your UNIT group and the United Nations. But there is far more to C19 than you, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, Commodore Gilmore, Major-General Scobie, and certainly Sir John Sudbury are aware.

We, Traynor and I, elected to try and contact you. Your non-military background makes you seem far more, shall we say, open-minded to the possibility of corruption and deceit at the highest levels. We feel that you have much less invested in the establishment than a military person, and less to lose except your personal honour. No one can demote you or cut off your pension if you disagree with them.

Traynor is currently based up at C19's north-eastern research station, attempting to find some concrete evidence to bring to your attention. Naturally, you don't know anything about C19's activities up north, do you? And why should you? Well, we believe that you and every citizen of Britain, if not the whole UN, ought to know. What is going on there has terrifying implications for us all.

I am sure you know what the Glasshouse is. You may assume (because we doubt anyone will have thought to tell you differently) that it is connected with C19, and therefore the Government, UNIT in Geneva and so on.

You would be wrong, I'm afraid. My dear Elizabeth, be prepared to discover the truth about many things you've taken for granted while at UNIT. You are the only civilian employed by UNIT and, despite your signature on the OSA form (I have the document in front of me), you are the only person within the operation who could uncover the truth. You will have help. A journalist from Amsterdam is in the country. She is looking for a big story, and frankly we are inclined to help her get it. Breaking C19 wide open can only be beneficial for all concerned.

If you would like to know more, or meet up with the journalist, Miss Kristan, please let us know by leaving a light on in your living room window at 4am any night after the 23rd of this month. We will contact you soon.

I hope we can help each other and, ultimately our fellow mankind, by exposing the truth.

Yours,

A friend

There was no other name or signature.

Liz stared at the letter for a few moments, re-read it, and shook her head. What was going on? Why her? Was this a joke? Was Jeff trying to add some spice to her life? She tore open the subsequent letter:

Traynor didn't come. He hadn't made it.

Damn.

Traynor supplied all the evidence he could, but is it going to be enough?

Probably not, but the man did his best. Now it is my job to continue the exposŽ.

Liz read the rest of it. The name 'Grant Traynor' rang a bell. Why? And why, if Traynor's identity was revealed, was her mysterious correspondent hiding his own identity?

She really wanted to disregard it as crank mail. But if that was the case, how had they discovered her connection to UNIT, and then found her home address? Even Maisie at UNIT didn't know it, Liz wasn't entirely sure if the Doctor had it either. As far as she knew, only the Brigadier knew where she lived. And Jeff and other friends. But UNIT-wise, she could only think of the Brigadier. Everyone else had the Cambridge flat's address and phone number.

Could Mrs Longhurst have told anyone? Unlikely. She thought Liz was only a civil servant who worked away from home a lot.

The phone rang and Liz jumped. John-Paul squeaked and raised a sleepy head. Liz was sure he had an annoyed glare on his face. 'Sorry,' she mouthed at him, picked him up and, with a quick kiss, replaced him in the cage, grabbing the phone on the way. 'Hold on a sec please,' she said and threw the receiver onto the sofa.

With John-Paul locked away, she grabbed the phone and sat back down. 'Sony about that.' 'Hello. Doctor Shaw?' A woman's voice, with some kind of European accent. Liz was going to ask who it was, but the letter caught her eye and she decided to make a stab in the dark.

'Yes, this is Liz. Is that Miss Kristan?'

There was a pause and then the stranger spoke again:

Yeah. Yes, I am. How did you know?'

Liz could not really answer that. 'A guess.'

'Well, I'm impressed. Did you get a couple of letters from a friend who didn't give you his name?'

Liz said that she had but, having not been at home on the night of the 23rd, she had failed to light the lamp.

'Light the lamp? Jesus, how melodramatic. The British sense of humour is well known, but that's almost medieval.'

Liz laughed. 'Well, Chicago in the thirties, at least. Look, do you understand any of this?'

The woman on the phone said she did not. 'My editor in Amsterdam gave me a message a few days ago, telling me to go to the Central Office of Information in London, where I was told to look up a particular file about a fire in the Channel Islands. When I got there and showed them my identification, there was a letter waiting for me, telling me to go to a place called Smallmarshes and watch.'

'And did you?'

The woman laughed. Quite a nice laugh, Liz thought. 'Yeah, I went. Pathetic place, full of pathetic people, but very... well, English I suppose. But I certainly saw some interesting things and I think we should discuss them.'

Liz felt torn. On the one hand, it sounded as though something of genuine importance and interest might be going on. On the other, she wasn't sure that she wanted to be involved. Still, she reasoned, one meeting would not commit her to anything. They agreed a time and place, and Miss Kristan hung up.

A few moments later, the telephone rang again.

'Hello. Is that Doctor Shaw?' It was the voice of an old man, with a rich, upper-class accent.

'Who are you?'

'Unimportant, Elizabeth, quite unimportant.'

Elizabeth. No one called her Elizabeth, apart from her mother and father when they were tetchy. The man on the phone was certainly not her father. The letter once again caught her eye. Its anonymous author had called her Elizabeth.