Field of Thirteen - Dick Francis [6]
He leaned over the arm of his chair and fondly patted his bulging briefcase.
DEAD ON RED
Although first published here, Dead on Red is set in the past (in 1986 and 1987, to be exact) partly because the regulations regarding the carriage of hand-guns from mainland Europe to England were tightened as part of the 1988 firearms act.
Emil Jacques Guirlande, Frenchman, feared flying to the point of phobia. Even advertising posters featuring aeroplanes, and especially the roar of stationary jet engines at airports, raised his heartbeat to discomfort and brought a fine mist of chill sweat to his hairline. Consequently he travelled from his Paris home by wheels and waves on his world-wide entrepreneurial missions, the more leisurely journeys in fact suiting his cautious nature better. He liked to approach his work thoughtfully, every contingency envisaged. Panicky reactions to unforeseen hitches were, in his orderly consideration, the stupidity of amateurs.
Emil Jacques Guirlande was a murderer by trade, a killer uncaptured and unsuspected, a quiet-mannered man who avoided attention, but who had by the age of thirty-seven successfully assassinated sixteen targets comprising seven businessmen, eight wives and one child.
He was, of course, expensive. Also reliable, inventive and heartless.
Orphaned at seven, unadopted, brought up in institutions, he had never been warmly loved for himself, nor had ever felt deep friendly affection for any living thing (except a dog). Military service in the army had taught him to shoot, and a natural competency with firearms, combined with a developing appetite for power, had led him afterwards to take employment as a part-time instructor in a civilian gun club, where talk of death reverberated in the air like cordite.
‘Opportunities’ were presented to Emil Jacques through the post by an unidentified go-between he had never met, but only after careful research would he accept a proposition. Emil considered himself high class. The American phrase ‘hit man’ was, to his fastidious mind, vulgar. Emil accepted a proposition only when he was sure his customer could pay, would pay, and wouldn’t collapse with maudlin regrets afterwards. Emil also insisted on the construction of unbreakable alibis for every customer likely to be an overwhelming suspect, and although this sounded easy it had sometimes been the overall stop or go factor.
And so it was on a particular Tuesday in December 1986. The essential alibi looking perfect, Emil committed himself to the task and carefully packed his bags for a short trip to England.
Emil’s English, functional rather than ornate, had sustained him so far through three English killings in four years. Tourist phrase-book’s gems – (‘Mora auto ne marche pas’; ‘my car’s broken down’) – had both kept him free from the damaging curiosity of others and also allowed him to abort his mission prudently if he felt unsafe before the act. He had, indeed, already twice retreated at a late stage from the present job in hand: once from bad weather, once from dissatisfaction with the sickness alibi proposed.
‘Pas bon,’ he said to himself. ‘No good.’
His client, who had paid a semi-fortune in advance, grew increasingly impatient at the delays.
On the Tuesday in December 1986, however, Emil Jacques, as satisfied with the alibi as he could be, having packed his bag and announced an absence from the gun club, set off in his inconspicuous white car to drive to Calais to cross the wintry waters of the English Channel.
As usual, he openly took with him the tools of his trade: handguns, ear defenders, multiple certificates proving his accreditation as a licensed instructor in a top-class Parisian club. He carried the lot in a locked metal sponge-lined suitcase, in the manner of photographers, and as it was still years before the banning of hand-guns in England, his prepared tale of entering competitions passed without question. Had he run into trouble on entry, he would have smiled resignedly and gone home.
Emil Jacques Guirlande, murderer, ran into