Chapter: THIRTY-FIVE35 I had a perfect firing position, with the rifle positioned on a wood and metal stand erected against the broad windowsill. All the equipment had been painted a dull black and laid out on the bed like sinister evening clothes, with the black velvet hood stitched to a shirt, made from the same material. The hood had wide slits for the eyes and mouth, reminding me of pictures I had seen of the executioner of Anne Boleyn. Switching off the attic lights, I took off my coat, put a stick of chewing gum into my mouth and donned the hood. I lay along the bed and got my eye to the rubberised eyepiece of the telescopic sight, and gently lifted the curtain over my shoulders. The grounds of the house were like a well-worn photograph. I scanned it all slowly, moving the 'scope with the rifle, adjusting the precision screws on the base. It was all the same except the headlights of an approaching car in the far distance probed the darkness like two pointing index fingers.
Last Updated: 2021-09-30
Chapter: THIRTY-FOUR34The Gala glittered with titles, diamonds, champagne, and talent.Later it might curl around the edges into spilt drinks, glassy eyes, raddled make-up, and slurring voices, but the gloss wouldn't entirely disappear.I handed over my invitation and walked along the wide passage where the lights were dimmed low, the music loud, and the air thick with scent.Around the dancing area, there were large circular tables with chairs for ten or twelve around each, most of them already occupied. According to the seating chart in the hall, at table thirty-two, I would find the place reserved for Ian Ure. My false name for the night. Nobody should recognise me with a false beard and glasses, but that didn't prevent a battery of curious eyes swivel my way. Many people raised hello, but none could work out who I was or hide their shock surprise that they didn't know me.A voice behind me said incredulously, "Ian!"I knew the voice and turned around with
Last Updated: 2021-09-29
Chapter: THIRTY-THREE33A1 Shooting-Range was just off the Barnet By-Pass. I lay at the five hundred metre firing point at the range. The white peg in the grass beside said 4.4, and the same number was recurrent high up on the distance but above the single six-foot square target that looked no larger than a postage stamp to the human eye and in the May dusk. But my lens, an infrared scope fixed above my rifle, covered the whole canvas. So, I could easily differentiate the pale-blue and beige colours into which the target separated. The six-inch semi-circular bull looked as big as the half-moon that started to show low down in the blackening sky above the A1.My last shot, an inner left – had been shit. I took another glance at the yellow-and-blue wind flags. They were coursing across the range from the east rather more firmly than I had begun my shoot half an hour before. I set two clicks to the right of the wind gauge and navigated the cross wires on the telescopic sight back to the
Last Updated: 2021-09-28
Chapter: THIRTY-TWO32By the time I returned to London, my unquenchable thirst for revenge knew no limits. The first few weeks were nothing but funerals. I even managed to attend the funeral of Pierre Clavell; Madame Charlotte Julien's absence did not go unnoticed, but what the congregation didn't know was that the day after the explosion, she passed away peacefully in her sleep.Another link in the chain, broken.Blanche's funeral was a sad affair, with her twins, the mirror image of their mother, stood solemnly in the front row, heads bowed, while the heavy rain battered the roof of the church. The burial took place in Highgate Cemetery, with the priest barely making himself heard above the shower.Everybody remained silent as the coffin was lowered into the ground by the pallbearers, and the twin daughters took it in turns to throw their handful of dirt onto the wooden lid. Usually, that moment echoed around the graveyard, but the rain drowned out even this poignant gest
Last Updated: 2021-09-27
Chapter: THIRTY-ONE31Oh my God, what the fuck do I do now?I naively looked around me to locate her missing limbs and put them back where they belonged. Only then did I see the other casualties. Those who had not only lost limbs but their lives. Like Pierre Duvall, whose head had separated from the rest of his body. Customers, tourists, and people passing by had all been caught up in Katrin Cajthamlova's collateral damage.A fireman says something in my ear in French, and when I tell him that I am English and my French is limited, he immediately talks to me in embarrassingly good English.He holds my shoulders as he guides me away from Blanche. "Come on, Monsieur. Let's get you out of here.Are you in any pain?"My tongue felt huge in my mouth, choking me. "No," I rasped before pointing at Blanche. "My friend." I am unable to say anything further."Don't worry, Monsieur," he said to me, "we'll do our best to look after her."He helped me to my f
Last Updated: 2021-09-27
Chapter: THIRTY30I am on my second beer when Blanche gets to the restaurant. I am watching the pizza chef spin a disc of dough in the air and draping it over his knuckles before relaunching it.The waiters are young.Two of them are watching Blanche, commenting to each other. They're trying to fathom our relationship. What is a beautiful, slender, blonde woman doing with me who is a great deal younger?She is either my mail order bride or my mistress, they are guessing.The café is nearly empty.Nobody eats this early in Paris. An older man with a dog sits near the front door.He slips his hand beneath the table with morsels of food."She could be anywhere by now," I say with reluctance. "She played us like a violin, and I didn't see it. I am getting too old for this cloak and dagger shit. I should retire."Blanche becomes angry. "She has fuelled a lot more people than just you. She is very good at her job, but you are better."
Last Updated: 2021-09-26
IF THE TRUTH BE TOLD
On August 23, the Metropolitan Police entered a well-appointed flat at 36 Suffolk Street, in the heart of London. In the flat, they found an ensuite bathroom; in the bathtub, they found a padlocked bag, and in the bag, they found the body of Tina Davis
Tina, a brilliant mathematician, worked in Cheltenham for GQHC, Britain's domestic eavesdropping agency. She lived in London on secondment to MI6, Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, and the block of flats where they found her body is an MI6 "safe house reportedly".
Uninterested in potential national-security angles, the police immediately announced they were looking for clues to Tina's mysterious death in the details of her private life. But they didn't make much headway. A month after discovering her body, they still hadn't determined the cause of death, although they had admitted the case was "complex" and "unexplained."
It seemed like a job for Quintus Noone
Fortunately, he happened to be available.
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Chapter: 5959 Sandra raised her eyes suddenly and gave me the same sort of inspection, as if she’d never really seen me before: and I guessed that for her it was much more a radical assessment. I was no longer the man she’d tricked rather easily with her charms and feminine ways, but the man who had discovered her duplicity. I was accustomed by now to seeing this new view of me when people had tried to deceive me, and although I might often regret it, there seemed no way of going back. “They warned me you know,” she said doubtfully. “I kept hearing how good the great Quintus Noone was, and I should tread carefully. They said you’re exceptionally good…exceptionally good…at this sort of thing. But I didn’t believe them. But now I’m standing here in your North London flat banged to rights.” “Afraid so,” I said succinctly. Her eyes were red with tears, but I never fell for crocodile tears. Having three sisters had nullified that emotion. “When did you
Last Updated: 2021-11-25
Chapter: 58"The three theories," I began, "are positively conceivable. Assuming what we recognise, we may deliberate them quite believable. But they are still theoretical. In extra words, they may be precise, but their correctness is by no way established. As such, they signify three areas of indecision. However, I do not regard these doubts as major flaws in our case, both because in all three examples, several reasonable replacements exist, and because these propositions are all efforts to respond consequential, or even relating, questions. We may never find acceptable responses to all these distant inquiries, but the fundamental of our case is built on solutions to other, more dominant, questions. Do you understand?" "I do," Sandra replied, "but I don't see where you're going with it." "I think Tina Davis was assassinated," I continued. "I think MI6 played a main role in her death, and I think so founded on deliberations dispassionate of these doubts. I think Tina was doing
Last Updated: 2021-11-25
Chapter: 57"As we move away from the fundamentals, things get ambiguous, Sandra. There is one conceivable response to the subject of why Tina may have focused against her employers. But there are many other probabilities. For what reason did Tina make those trips to the café near the West Finchley tube station. Her recurrent chance encounters with an enigmatic duo, who may or may not be the same as the Mediterranean twosome for whom the police are hypothetically searching. Maybe Tina and the couple were convening to arrange other, less observable meetings, and for this motive, these discussions were seen by Tina's MI6 as duplicitous.""It is likely that the Mediterranean pair, and the West Finchley team may be the identical people," Sandra interjected, "and that they might have been MI6 agents who were allocated to analyse Tina, possibly to deceive her, definitely to obtain whatever she may have been attracted to reveal."
Last Updated: 2021-11-25
Chapter: 56"But why?" Sandra demanded, "I cannot believe you are willing to give up, so easily.""When I said, I was going to drop it, what I meant was that the Home Secretary angle has been shut off to me, but there are more than one way to skin a cat.""Please, Quintus, tell me, what you are planning to do?""Very well. Unless I'm reading it entirely incorrect, the crime concerned as much personality elimination as bodily slaying. What could be the reason? It seems to me that Tina must have been doing something her managers found unbearable, something that made her a burden rather than an advantage, and I don't think she was very careful about it.""Go on," Sandra pressed."She was besieged for a three-branched attack: first, to quieten her forever; second, to make sure she would never be contemplated well-thought-of, though she may have been much more than that; and third, to warn her co-workers of the significances of pursuing the trail she chose."
Last Updated: 2021-11-25
Chapter: 55I woke up early the following day to find that Sandra had already left, although she hadn't eaten breakfast. Instead, I found a note and a newspaper. I read the note first. Quintus There is terrible news this morning. I have gone to find out what the Commissioner knows about this. All the morning papers say the same. So here is the story in its most diminutive illegible form. I will return as soon as possible. SB Then I picked up the paper and found that Sandra had circled a headline, which read: Two Metropolitan Police Shot In Jewellery Shop Robbery Home Secretary Unharmed, Cabinet Shuffled The text was this: Two Metropolitan Police officers sustained gunshot wounds yesterday after apparently stumbling upon an attempted burglary in progress. Detectives Hector Nelson, 45, and Stewart Alderman, 32, were wounded while chasing suspe
Last Updated: 2021-11-24
Chapter: 54Under arrest?" the Home Secretary cried. "Are you stupid? I am a Home Secretary! A representative of the Cabinet! I am a fragment of the Government!! Do you comprehend??""Yes!" Nelson said."I cannot be under arrest!" the Home Secretary continued. "I cannot be incarcerated! I cannot be put on trial! Don't you know anything?""I do understand," said Nelson calmly, "that no man's job designation seats him above the rules.""Ha!" the Home Secretary replied, whose pallid face was becoming more sanguine with each occurring second. "We become the law! We are the law! The directive is ours! It is not to be expended in opposition to us!"Sandra, Nelson, and I gaped in incredulity as the manacled man carried on. Alderman, progressing gradually, appeared from the bedroom and began to move toward us. The Home Secretary didn't seem to perceive; he just stormed on."We're the administration!" he bellowed. "We make the regulations. So clearly we cannot r
Last Updated: 2021-11-24
Chapter: 32DI Silver put money in the machine and got out two coffees. “White, no sugar.” I took the coffee with one hand. In the other I held a polythene laundry-bag, inside which was my shirt. “Do you want to tell me what happened then, John?” He sat down next to me. I sipped the coffee, it tasted awful. “Professor Stephen Baker lured Cairo Nickolls, Robert Trefoil and Bernard Catterall to his house, drugged them and then systematically cut them up.” “Jesus,” DI Silver exclaimed. “What did he drug them with?” “Chloroform.” I replied. “It’s vapour depresses the central nervous system of a patient, allowing the Professor to cut them up without them even knowing.” “But why?” “He wanted justice for the murder of Jenny Davies.” I replied. “As pathologist on the case he provided the evidence for the Crown Prosecution Service solicitor, a certain Gerard Forlin. It should have been an open and shut
Last Updated: 2022-01-18
Chapter: 31I found a deserted corner in the Waggoner’s Rest while DI Silver ordered a pint of Wellington Bomber for himself and a pint of Calvors 3.8 for me. He had already sipped his drink on the way over to the table and when he sat down he wiped away a white moustache of froth from his upper lip with the back of his hand. Suddenly, a scuffle broke out at the bar, apparently over a woman. A glass fell to the floor, followed by a hush in the bar. Then everyone seemed to calm down a little. One man was led outside by his supporters in the argument. Another remained slumped against the bar, muttering to a woman beside him. “Where’s Robert Trefoil?” I asked, referring to the landlord. “Today is his day off,” DI Silver replied. &ld
Last Updated: 2022-01-18
Chapter: 30A sandstone arch marked the entrance to Oxmarket Woods. The narrow access road, flanked by trees, lead to a small car park, a dead end. This was where I met DI Silver; his car was parked amongst the fallen leaves. Thirty yards from the car park was a signpost pointing out several walking trails. The red trail takes an hour and covered approximately two miles. The purple trail is shorter but it took in an Iron Age fort. Fallen leaves were piled like snowdrifts along the ditches and the breeze had shaken droplets from the branches. This was ancient woodland and I could smell the damp earth, rotting boles and mould: a cavalcade of smells. Occasionally, between the trees I glimpsed a railing fence that marked the boundary. Above and beyond it there were roofs of houses. &n
Last Updated: 2022-01-18
Chapter: 29“What were you arguing with Mr Gannaway about last night?” I asked Craig Osborne brusquely. “Look, Mr whatever your name is, please don’t waste my time, I have very urgent business to attend to in London.” “And you’ll have some very important questions to attend to down the police station,” DI Silver bellowed, “if you don’t answer Mr Handful.” I suddenly saw fear in Osborne’s eyes. “We were arguing about something he had stolen from Miss Bellagamba,” he said quietly. “Which was?” “An Anthonie Van Borsom oil painting.” “Pricey,” I exclaimed. &
Last Updated: 2022-01-18
Chapter: 28At low tide Kimberley and I walked along the beach to Oxham, the next coastal village on from Oxmarket. It was a grey morning. The mist still lingering inland, but at the edge of the sea, the air was cold and clear. It was hard going, walking along pebble and rocks encrusted with tiny, sharp mussel shells. Eventually, we sat down for breakfast at the Inn by the Sea where the bacon and eggs were excellent, the coffee not so good, but passable and boiling hot. “I don’t know,” I said, stretching myself backward. “I believe I could manage another egg and perhaps a rasher or two of bacon. What about you, darling?” Kimberley shook her head vigorously. “Good God, no,” she exclaimed, patting her perfectly flat stomach. “I’m absolutely stuffed.”
Last Updated: 2022-01-18
Chapter: 26Anna Mitchell surprised me. She was smart and attractive in her dark blue trouser suit, with blonde hair and a pale complexion; she stood out from the rest of the customers in The Old Cannon Brewery. A group of young men at the bar tracked her when she appeared, but they turned away as she sat down opposite me at the table near the window that overlooked Oxmarket Tye’s snow-covered cobbled market square. “Pleased to meet you, Mr Handful,” she said, although there was a frost to her tone. “Thank you,” I said, “may I get you a drink?” “A Prosecco would be lovely.” I walked to the bar and ordered a glass of Prosecco and a pint of Calvors 3.8. On my return, Anna Mitchell thanked me with a con
Last Updated: 2022-01-17
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