Hell Is Too Crowded - Jack Higgins [21]
Brady didn't bother to reply. He closed the door and moved back along the covered way to the temple. The woman was standing in the entrance hall in front of a small statue, head bowed in contemplation.
She turned as he approached and smiled. "Was the Swami able to help you?"
"I think you could say that," Brady told her.
"We, who have been shown the way, have much to thank him for."
"He's undoubtedly a most unusual man," Brady assured her solemnly and passed out into the night.
The door closed softly behind him and he paused for a moment on the top step. Obviously London was his next stop, but how was he going to get there? He had already spent half of the five pounds he had taken from the till at the shop, and the train fare would be more than that, he was sure.
Trying to hitch-hike would be fatal, but there was bound to be a transport cafe somewhere on the main road out of town. The sort of place where southbound truck drivers stopped for a meal and a rest. If only he could get into the back of a truck without being seen, he could be in London for breakfast and no one the wiser.
The street was deserted except for one car parked a little higher up with its lights on. As he turned out through the main gate, the car started up and moved towards him.
It was the black Mercedes, the one which had splashed him with water earlier. He kept on walking at the same steady pace down towards the main road. Behind him there was a sudden burst of acceleration and the Mercedes bounced on to the pavement with the obvious intention of pinning him against the wall like a fly.
Brady jumped for the top of the railing and lifted his legs. Something seemed to pluck at his coat and then the Mercedes was back on the road and braking to a halt. As it started to reverse, he dropped to the pavement, turned and ran.
Tyres screamed behind him and a great finger of light picked him out of the darkness, throwing a gigantic shadow against a brick wall. He turned desperately and noticed a narrow opening to the left. He barely made it as the car skidded to a halt.
He was standing in the entrance to a narrow, stoneflagged footpath which ran between high stone walls and was lit, half-way along, by an old-fashioned gas lamp bracketed to one of the walls.
The car door slammed and Brady moved back into the shadows and waited. The man came forward and paused a few feet away, and the light from the gas lamp which illuminated the entrance to the footpath, glinted on the pebble-dash spectacles beneath the Homburg hat
The collar of his heavy, Continental greatcoat was turned up to obscure his face, but his teeth showed in a pleasant smile and he said in his peculiar lisping voice, "Let's be sensible about this, Brady."
"Suits me," Brady said. "Who the hell are you? Anton Haras?"
The man laughed once, coldly, and raised his right hand. Brady ducked as flame stabbed through the night. There was a muffled cough and a bullet ricocheted from the wall behind him.
Once, sitting in a cafe in Havana before the Castro regime, he had seen a man assassinated at the next table. The killer had used a Mauser with an SS bulbous silencer and it had made just such a noise. Brady turned and ran, his eyes fixed on the gas lamp halfway along the footpath.
Feet pounded over the flagstones behind him, the sound echoing from the walls and again, there came that peculiar muffled cough and something whispered past his ear.
He stumbled to his knees and his fingers fastened over a large stone. As he scrambled up, he hurled it at the gas lamp, plunging the footpath into darkness, and ran on.
He came out into the narrow alley at the side of the Hippodrome Theatre at a dead run. A few yards down on the left-hand side was the stage door, a small lamp still turned on above it.
As Brady ran forward, the door opened and a woman emerged. She carried a small grip in one hand and turned to lock the door. Brady slipped on the greasy cobbles and stumbled against an overflowing dustbin, the lid falling to the ground with a clatter.
She turned in alarm and he looked down