The Rain-Soaked Bride (22 page)

Toby watched over the man’s shoulder as he ran the footage that covered the conservatory exit. It was clear for a moment and then he saw himself run out of the door.

‘That’s you,’ the guard noted.

‘It is.’

They watched Rowlands, Arnold and Bateman emerge next then the guard rewound the footage so Toby could see it all happen in reverse. The guard kept rewinding but the screen showed an empty door. ‘Nothing, see?’

The guard shared his attention between the monitors and the control panel, bringing up the archive footage of the front door.

‘As for this one,’ he let it play and Toby watched an empty door. ‘Absolutely nothing. So if your bloke did get out …’

‘He didn’t use a door to do it. More likely …’

‘He’s still in the house.’

‘Good man,’ Toby patted him on the shoulder. ‘Don’t listen to Rowlands, you’re doing great.’

‘I know,’ the guard replied without a hint of arrogance. ‘I earn my pay.’

c) Lufford Hall, Alcester, Warwickshire

As Toby made his way back up the drive, he heard the sound of an ambulance approaching, beating its way along the country road with all the sound and fury the emergency services could muster. Toby was relieved. He knew from experience that the odds of Fratfield surviving rested entirely on how quickly he received treatment. Given how soon the ambulance had arrived, his prospects were looking good. By the time Toby reached the front door, he could tell the ambulance was close behind him.

Shining was waiting for him. ‘Nothing?’ he asked.

‘Nothing,’ Toby agreed.

‘Me neither. So he’s still here.’

Rowlands appeared, having heard the sound of the ambulance, with Bateman in tow.

‘We need to get our man in and gone as quickly as possible,’ Rowlands said. ‘If there’s a better opportunity for our boy to sneak out of the grounds I don’t know of one. Keep your eyes on the vehicle at all times.’

‘There’s nothing on the camera footage,’ Toby told him. ‘I checked.’

Rowlands nodded. ‘So I’m told. Which means we still have him. So we can still catch him.’ He stepped out of the way as the ambulance pulled up in front of them. ‘I’ll leave you to keep an eye here. I’m sure you can manage that.’

Two paramedics climbed down from the ambulance and fetched a stretcher from the rear of the vehicle. Shining led them inside.

April joined Toby at the front door.

‘You think he’ll be all right?’ Toby asked her.

‘From what Chun-hee tells me, he has every chance,’ she replied. ‘The sooner they can get him into surgery the more likely it is that he’ll pull through. He’s lost a lot of blood but he’s not gone into shock and it doesn’t look like the bullet pierced anything vital.’

‘How are the Koreans taking it?’

‘A mixture of disbelief and righteous anger. South Korea is used to acts of violence against them from the North. I think Tae-young is ashamed, which is silly, but she was feeling guilty about the cost of life these talks had caused as it was, even more so now that one of their party is the culprit.’

‘It doesn’t matter where the assassin came from.’

‘Of course it doesn’t. Though I imagine our lot will be breathing a sigh of diplomatic relief. It’s easier for our public image if the killer came from their side.’

‘Politics,’ Toby sighed.

‘Of course. But come on, you’re a big boy, you know how these things work. Perception is the real power. What we do? Doesn’t matter. What we’re seen to do is everything. That’s precisely why I left active service and went into the more obscure dark arts of politics and diplomacy.’

‘I can never get my head around your career,’ Toby admitted. ‘Nobody can have done half the things you claim to have done.’

‘Can’t they?’ She smiled. ‘Perception is everything.’

They stood back as Fratfield was carried past them. Toby raised his hand as the man went past, relieved to see Fratfield nod gently in return.

‘He’ll be OK,’ said one of the paramedics. ‘He’s a lucky man, the shot couldn’t have been more perfectly placed had he tried. Straight through, should be no major complications.’

‘Good to hear,’ Toby said.

They lifted Fratfield into the back and the ambulance drove away.

‘Should we join the search?’ Toby asked Shining, the old man having joined them again.

‘I think we can leave that to the others,’ Shining replied, ‘our time would be better served chatting with Chun-hee.’

d) Lufford Hall, Alcester, Warwickshire

They gathered in the drawing room while the security officers continued to search the building.

Shining tapped Chun-hee on the shoulder. ‘I think we should pool our resources,’ he said.

The Korean looked at him for a moment and then nodded. ‘Perhaps that is fair,’ he agreed, ‘off the record.’

‘Oh, naturally.’

Chun-hee picked up a decanter of brandy and some glasses and they made their way to the library in order to find some privacy in which to drink it and talk about what they knew.

‘We were aware that this conference was likely to draw unfavourable attention from our enemies in the North,’ Chun-hee began, sipping at his brandy. ‘It was inevitable.

‘We received intelligence of a meeting held between representatives of the North Korean government and a private contractor. It took place a month or so ago at Mount Baekdu, close to the Chinese border. We had limited information. All we knew was that someone was being paid a good deal of money to involve themselves in our business. When you hire privately, people hear …’

‘But you are a safe distance away from the incident should the contractor get caught,’ said Toby. ‘Plausible deniability.’

‘Indeed. This has become standard practice of late. As the North attempts to convince the world of its honourable intentions, it turns more and more to others when acting outside its own borders. Perhaps pressure has been put on them by their allies in Russia and China – who wants to be embarrassed by the friend who keeps starting fights, eh?’ Chun-hee shrugged. ‘It is not important, it is simply the way things are at the moment.

‘We attempted to infiltrate the meeting but our agent never reported in. We can only assume he was caught. Our only thread was the contractor. A man some circles refer to as the Magician.’

‘An apt name,’ said Toby.

‘Perhaps,’ Chun-hee admitted. ‘These people call themselves all kinds of things. Names designed to intimidate or impress. I dedicated my time to tracking him down. He has done work for a handful of people over the years. He works for anyone who can afford his services. He is not as active as most in his line of work but he is expensive and the results are always impressive.’

‘The powers he calls on are not to be used lightly,’ said Shining. ‘The more you rely on them, the more you risk falling prey to them yourself. I’m not surprised he’s selective with his contracts.’

Chun-hee nodded. ‘I will be honest. I am a rational man. I am not someone inclined to believe in the stories I hear about the Magician and his work. Like all of his kind, he gets work by building a reputation. His is that of an assassin who cannot be traced. He kills in ways that defy explanation. They are deaths that cannot be held accountable to another person.’

‘Accidents,’ said Toby.

‘Just so. Impossible, unexplainable deaths. That makes him sought after. If nobody can even prove that your enemy was murdered, how can the finger of blame ever be pointed?’ He took another sip of his drink. ‘Perhaps he is as you say. A man who has knowledge of your …’ he reminded himself of Shining’s words from earlier, ‘“future science”.’

Shining smiled.

‘All I know is that I have traced his movements as far as I can over the last few years. I have tried to find him. To unmask him.’

‘And now you have?’ asked Toby.

Chun-hee thought about that for a moment. ‘Perhaps.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose that is what we must assume.’

‘But you’re not convinced?’ asked Shining.

‘The greatest problem in our line of work,’ said Chun-hee, ‘is that so much of it is about assumption. We pick up tiny clues. We follow the finest threads trying to get at the truth. Along the way we piece those details together. We guess. The best, most logical, guesses but guesses nonetheless. We try and flesh out the invisible.’

Chun-hee paused again. Toby thought he was probably trying to decide how much he should say.

‘I had made my guesses,’ he continued. ‘I thought I was close to the Magician. I thought I knew who he was. And now …’

‘It wasn’t who you thought?’ asked Toby.

‘No. I had been following a man’s trail. A …’ He scratched at his face, becoming more and more reluctant to talk. ‘It is not fair to say. Because now the evidence goes against me. But I thought he was one of your men. I had traced his route around the world and found that he could often be placed near confirmed sightings of the Magician. This was too much of a coincidence, I had decided, these men are too often in the same place at the same time. But now … now I know that I cannot have been right. I cannot. And yet, this young man? This wealthy little fool? He is the man who has terrified client and victim alike for the last few years? I find it hard to accept.’

He drained his drink and topped it back up.

‘You think we may have been misled?’ asked Shining.

‘I do not see how,’ Chun-hee admitted. ‘Kim Man-dae has broken cover. Sometimes it is difficult to admit you have been wrong. And yet now I feel I must. The Magician is not who I thought it was, and I have been made to look a fool.

‘I was here to keep an eye on the delegates, to protect them from harm. I have been looking in the wrong direction and it is only good fortune that the killer has been unmasked. We must hope that, exposed as he now is, hunting him down and putting an end to this is within our grasp.’

‘Who did you think it was?’ asked Toby, looking towards Shining. ‘Now you know you were wrong surely there’s no harm in saying?’

‘There is every harm. I do not intend to allow a shadow to fall over a man who is clearly innocent. There is no chance it is the man I believed. That is now clear to me. I have been poor in my work. I shall not continue to be so.’ He got to his feet, abandoning his drink. ‘Now I must try and make up for it. The traitor Kim must still be in the building somewhere. We should not be sat here talking, we should be helping the others find him.’

‘Absolutely,’ Shining agreed. ‘You go ahead, we’ll see you shortly.’

The Korean left and Shining and Toby regarded what was left of their drinks.

‘I wish he would tell us,’ said Toby. ‘You saw what happened when the smoke touched Rowlands. It went green. He’s not the innocent he appears.’

‘Perhaps not,’ Shining agreed.

‘Why would it have turned green if he wasn’t hiding something?’

‘The experiment proved nothing except for the fact that he’s had some exposure to magic. If Man-dae hadn’t been such an impetuous little idiot, he could have easily brazened it out. Why run?’

‘Because he thought we’d exposed him.’

‘Chun-hee is right to be suspicious. Are we really supposed to believe that the Magician, a man who has earned a reputation as a terrifying assassin, is spooked by a parlour trick?’ Shining sighed and slammed his glass on the table next to him. ‘It doesn’t fit. It’s nonsense and, deep down, if he could just get beyond his overinflated sense of damaged honour, Chun-hee knows it.’

‘So we need to keep working on him?’

‘We need to keep working on everything, yes.’

e) Lufford Hall, Alcester, Warwickshire

The Hall was searched from top to bottom. It was gone midnight by the time that Mark Rowlands was forced to angrily admit, ‘He’s not bloody here.’

Revising security details to patrol the building and grounds throughout the night, he went outside to smoke a cigarette and swear at shadows.

Those who had remained gathered in the drawing room were forced to retire to their bedrooms, locking their doors and lying uncertainly in their beds, wondering over each creak they heard in the old building.

None were more uncertain than Ryu Chun-hee, who ignored his bed in favour of the armchair by his bedroom window. He stared out at the night and tried to reconcile his chaotic thoughts.

He was certain that his initial suspicions as to the identity of the Magician had been wrong. He was not so old and stuck in his ways that he couldn’t admit failure. Still, he couldn’t believe Man-dae was the assassin either. Which only left one alternative: a third, hitherto unknown possibility. But who?

He watched as one of Rowlands’ security officers crossed the lawn outside his window, quartering the grounds, hunting for ghosts.

Eventually, he fell asleep, slumping in his chair.

When he woke it was still dark, his neck cricked from the uncomfortable position he had been sitting in. This was ridiculous, he decided, he should go to bed, get some proper sleep, then maybe, in the morning, once his head was clear, he might be able to piece things together.

He got to his feet, holding on to the back of the chair as pins and needles coursed through his legs.

Only then did he notice the shadow stood in front of his window.

Was this what had woken him? The awareness that he was no longer alone in his room? Once upon a time he had prided himself on his alertness. Nobody could get the jump on Ryu Chun-hee, he had said; even when sleeping, his senses were alert.

He thought about that as the shadow bore down on him, a hand clamped across his mouth and a sudden burning sensation in the back of his neck.

‘No dark theatre for you, I’m afraid,’ said a voice in his ear. ‘Your medical report tells me you’ve been having a little heart trouble. The good news is: you won’t be having it again.’

Chun-hee fought against his attacker, even as he realised the burning sensation for what it was, the dissipation of poison in his system from the point of a hypodermic syringe.

He struggled for another twenty seconds and then his fight was over.

f) Lufford Hall, Alcester, Warwickshire

Bateman walked out into the night and tried to let the cold wind blow the stuffiness from him. God, how he hated these diplomatic affairs. Just when it had looked like there was going to be an end to the pacing up and down and poking around in bushes, the little bastard had gone to ground and it was back to going over the place with a fine-tooth comb.