The English Assassin (5 page)

Arriving too late, a Panther patrol lowered its .280 EM1s as if in salute to the dying. Standing in single file along the North Bank they watched the children drown.

The Panthers were led by a tall aristocrat in a finely tailored white suit, a neatly trimmed Imperial beard and moustache and short hair cut close to the nape of his black neck. He carried an elegant single-shot Remington XP-100. The bolt-action pistol was borne more for aesthetic effect than anything else. He held it in his right hand and his arms were folded across his chest so that the long barrel rested in the crook of his left elbow. The Panthers in their own well-cut cream uniforms looked enquiringly at their Head. It was unquestionably a problem of taste. The Panthers lived for taste and beauty, which was why they had been the most virulent force against the barbarians. The war between the two had been a war of styles and the Panthers, under their American leaders, had won all the way down the line.

At last the Panthers on the North Bank reached a decision. Lining the embankment, they turned their tall backs, dropped their chins to their chests and lounged against the balustrade, listening to the fading cries of the dying until there was silence in the river again. Then they climbed back into their open Mercedes and Bentley tourers and rolled away from there.

A few barbarians stood on the far bank, twisting themselves joints, hesitating before rejoining the exodus as it ploughed on towards the Borough High Street, heading for the suburbs of Surrey and Kent and what was left of the pickings.

And those, said the major, indicating the disappearing Panthers, do you identify, perhaps, with them?

Jerry shrugged. Maybe a little more. No—no, there’s nobody left at all, major, let’s face it. I’m on my own in this one and I can’t say I like it. My fault, perhaps.

Possibly you lost sight of your targets, Mr Cornelius.

I’ve hit all the targets, Major Nye. That’s the trouble. He took out his needler and turned it this way and that to catch the light on its polished chrome. Is there anything sadder, I wonder, than an assassin with nobody left to kill?

I shouldn’t think so. Major Nye’s voice was now more than sympathetic. I know exactly what you mean, my dear chap. And I suppose that’s why we’re both standing here watching. Our sun has set, I’m afraid.

Keep moving towards the sun and it will never set, said Jerry. That’s positive thinking, major. It will never happen. It’s a matter of finding the right place. The correct speed for forward momentum.

Major Nye said nothing as he shook his grey head.

It will never fucking happen! Jerry shouted.

The masonry had blocked the flow of the river and was making it flood over the embankment. A few corpses were washed up and there was other, fouler, flotsam, too.

Jerry went back to the skylight and put his feet on the scarred wooden steps. He was going inside. Coming, major?

No, I’ll stop here for a while, old son. And keep your chin up, eh?

Thanks, major. Same to you.

Jerry climbed down into the ruined bedroom and stood staring at the dreadful corpse of the girl in the four-poster. The rats ignored him and went on eating. He aimed the gun but, after a minute or two, replaced it in his holster without shooting. Even the rats couldn’t last much longer.

Smoothly, with mock apologetic smiles, they nailed him to the lowest yard of the mizzen. They were standing off the Kent coast, near Romney, out of sight of land. The three-masted schooner-rigged yacht rocked in the heavy sea. The sea tugged at the anchors, hurled its weight against the white sides. Waiting for the waters to subside, they paused in the hammering. Almost expectantly they looked up at him. The two women, who had nailed his hands, were Karen von Krupp and Mitzi Beesley. They were dressed in deck pyjamas and chic little sailormen’s hats. The man who had nailed his feet was his brother Frank. Frank wore grey flannels, a white open-necked shirt and a fairisle pullover. He was kneeling beside the mizzen, the hammer in both hands.

Jerry spoke with great control. I made no claims.

But many were made
for
you, said Bishop Beesley through a mouthful of beige fudge. He stood by the rail, his bottom wedged against it. You didn’t deny them.

I deny nothing. Have I disagreed with your opinion?

No. But, then, I’m not sure…

We have that in common, at least.

The sea grew calm. Bishop Beesley made an impatient gesture, withdrawing a Mars bar from under his surplice. The three resumed their hammering.

Together with the nails in his palms there were ropes supporting his wrists so that the weight of his hanging body would not rip the impaled flesh too quickly, for they wanted him to die of asphyxiation, not of pain or loss of blood alone. He breathed hard. The sharp pressure increased in his chest. The last blows fell. The three stood back to inspect their work. The corpulent Bishop Beesley licked his lips, sniffed the odour of the stale sea.

Dead fish, said the bishop. Dead fish.

Alan Stuart, aged four, who sprayed his mouth with what is believed to have been a pressurised oven cleaner at his home in Benhillwood Road, Sutton, Surrey, has died in hospital.

The Sun
, 28 September, 1971

A boy aged 14 died after being stabbed in the chest in the playground of Wandsworth School, South London, yesterday. He died in Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, soon after the stabbing, which happened during the morning break at the boys’ comprehensive school. Last night another boy, also aged 14, was accused of the murder. He will appear at Southwark North juvenile court today.

Guardian
, 19 November, 1971

Shirley Wilkinson, aged 16, daughter of the train robber Jack Wilkinson, died last night in the South London hospital where she had been detained after being injured in a car crash.

Guardian
, 20 November, 1971

Scores of rush-hour cars flashed by as a 10-year-old girl fled naked and terrified from a sex maniac. But not one driver stopped. And motorists took no notice of the girl’s frantic cries for help as the man dragged her into his car. Later the man raped and strangled her. The body of little Jane Hanley was found at the weekend in a field outside Rochester, New York. “At least 100 people must have seen her,” said a policeman. “She had apparently been kidnapped but jumped from the man’s car and pleaded with passing motorists to help. The kidnapper grabbed her and drove off again.” Now rewards totalling £2,500 have been offered by newspapers and citizens’ organisations for information leading to the killer. Three drivers have now admitted they saw the drama on Highway 400—10 miles from where Jane disappeared while on a shopping errand. One said: “I went by so fast I couldn’t believe what I saw.”

The Sun
, 22 November, 1971

Save us.

From the basement in Talbot Road. From mother’s breath and mother’s saliva. From cold chips. From dirty hand-me-downs. From stained mattresses. From old beer bottles. From the smell of urine. From damp squalor.

From the poverty trance.

“So we fetched up ’ere again ’ave we?” Mrs Cornelius said sullenly as her lean son guided her off the decrepit street and down the foul basement steps. “Yore doin’ okay fer yerself, incha? Yer ole mum’d never know it.”

“You prefer it here, Mother,” said Frank patiently. “When we got you that council flat you complained.”

“It wasn’t the bleedin’ flat, it was the arrangements. Orl them stairs. I can’t get inter a lift it makes me sick. And them neighbours reckonin’ theirselves…”

“Well. There it is.” Frank took the door handle in both hands and lifted it so that the damp wood just cleared the step. “I’ll get you some more batteries for your wireless.”

They entered the stinking gloom.

“I could do wiv a drink.”

Frank took a half-bottle of Gordon’s gin from the pocket of his sheepskin coat. She accepted it with dignity and placed it on the warped and littered sideboard, near the primitive television which had stopped working, well before the electricity had been cut off. “I’d make yer a cuppa tea,” she said, “but…”

“I’ve paid the gas bill. They’re coming round to turn you on tomorrow.”

She waded through the litter of old newspapers and broken furniture. She lit the two stumps of candles on the rotting draining board. She moved a pile of old, damp Christmas cards. “Wot yer fink Jerry’s chances are, Frankie?”

“Ask the experts.” Frank shrugged and rubbed at his pale face. “It’s probably nothing more than exhaustion. He’s been overdoing it recently.”

“Workin’!” said Mrs Cornelius derisively.

“Even Jerry has to graft sometimes, Mum.”

“Lazy sod. ’Ow’s yer antique business doin’?”

Frank became wary. “So so.”

“Well, at least yer ’elp out sometimes. I don’t see
’im
one year ter the next.” She sighed and lowered herself into the discoloured armchair. “Oooch! Them fuckin’ springs. Damp as Brighton Beach, too.” The complaints were uttered in a tone of comfortable approval. She had been too long out of her natural environment. She reached up for the gin and began to unscrew the cap. Frank handed her a dirty glass from the sink.

“I must be off,” he said. “Got everything you need?”

“Couldn’t lend us a coupla quid couldya, Frankie?”

Frank reached into the right pocket of his cavalry twill trousers and removed a mixed handful of notes. He hesitated, then extracted a fiver. He showed it to her and put it on the sideboard. “You’ll have to go down to the Assistance on Monday. That should do you for the weekend. I won’t be around for a while.”

“Be up in yer flat in ’Olland Park wiv yer nobby mates, eh?”

“No. Out of town.”

“Wot abart the shop?”

“Mo’s looking after that. I’m off to Scotland to see what’s still going in the big houses there. Everybody’s running out of antiques. There’s nothing left in England—even the sixties have gone dry. We’re catching up on ourselves. It’s funny.” He smiled as she stared uncomprehendingly at him. “Don’t worry, Mum. You enjoy your drink.”

Her features flowed back into their normal lines of stupid complacency. “Thanks, Frankie.”

“And give Cathy my love if you see her.”

“That slut! Wors’n Jerry if yer ask me! I ’eard she was on the game. Shacked up wiv a black feller.”

“I doubt if she’s on the game.”

“I disown ’er,” Mrs Cornelius said grandly, raising the bottle to her lips, “as any daughter o’ mine.”

Frank buttoned up his suède car coat and pulled the lambswool collar around his dark face. He smoothed his Brylcreemed hair with the palm of his hand then slipped the hand into a suède-backed motoring glove. “Mo said he’d come and clean this place out—give you some better furniture.”

“Yeah?”

“When shall I tell him to come?”

She looked nervously around her. “Later,” she said. “I’ll ’ave ter fink abart wot I do and don’ wanna keep. We’ll discuss it later, eh?” She hadn’t thrown a thing out since well before the war.

“You’ll have that bloke from the council round again,” he warned.

“Don’t worry abart
that
! I can deal with the fuckin’ council!”

“They might find you alternative accommodation.”

Her heavy face was full of apprehension. “Abart time, too,” she moaned.

He left, pulling the creaking door shut behind him.

She leaned the gin bottle on the arm of the mephitic chair and looked tenderly around at her home. It had been condemned in 1934, was scheduled for redevelopment by 1990, which meant any time after the turn of the century. It would last her out. The first candle guttered and threw peculiar shadows on the mildewed walls. The gin began to warm her chest and belly. She peered at the cracked mantelpiece on the far side of the room, locating the faded pictures of the fathers of her children. There was Frank’s father in his GI uniform. There was Cathy’s father in his best suit. There was the father of the dead twins, of the three abortions—the one who had married her. Only Jerry’s father was missing. She didn’t remember him, for all she’d borrowed his name. Through all her marriages she’d always been known as Mrs Cornelius. She’d only been about sixteen, hadn’t she? Or even younger? Or was that something else? Was he the Jewish feller? Her eyelids closed.

Soon she was dreaming her nice dream as opposed to her nasty dream. She was kneeling on a big white woolly carpet. She was completely naked and there was blood dripping from her mangled nipples as she was buggered by a huge, black, shapeless animal. In her sleep her hands fell to her lap and she dug at herself with her nails and stirred and snorted, waking herself up. She smiled and drank down the rest of the gin and was soon fast asleep again.

“Poverty,” said Auchinek to Lyons, the Israeli colonel, “increased markedly in Europe last year. This, in itself, would not have threatened the status quo had not a group of liberal politicians persistently offered the people hope without, of course, any immediate prospect of improving their lot. Naturally they moved swiftly from apathy to anger. Without their anger I doubt if I should have been anything like as successful.” He smiled. “I owe at least some of my success to the human condition.”

“You’re modest.” The colonel stared approvingly at his troops as they joined with their Arab allies and began, systematically, to lay dynamite charges throughout what was left of the city of Athens. “Besides, wasn’t the collapse to some extent cultural?”

“It was a culture without flexibility, I agree. I must admit I share the view that Western civilisation—European civilisation, if you like—was out of tempo with the rest of the world. It imposed itself for a short time—largely because of the vitality, stupidity and priggishness of those who supported it. We shall never be entirely cleansed of its influence, I’m afraid.”

“You aren’t suggesting that the only values worth keeping are those of the Orient?” Lyons’s murmur was sardonic.