Solo - Jack Higgins [62]
So, what was left? The newspapers, the magazines on the table, each with a different account of the Cohen shooting. How many times had he pored over them? He pulled the Telegraph forward and once again worked his way through the relevant article.
When he had finished, he poured another coffee and sat back. Of course, the one thing that was missing was the death of Megan in the tunnel, because the press had not been allowed to link the two events.
There was a mention, entirely separate, treating it as an ordinary hit and run accident in which the driver of a stolen car had run down a young schoolgirl and later abandoned the vehicle in Craven Hill Gardens, Bayswater.
It was with no particular emotion he realized that, for some reason, he hadn't actually visited the place where the Cretan had dumped the car. Not that there could be anything worth seeing. On the other hand, what else was there to do when you were at the final end of things at six o'clock on a wet, grey London morning?
He parked the Porsche in Craven Hill Gardens, and sat there with the Geographia map book of London on his knees, open at the relevant page, tracing the course of the Cretan's wild progress that night, imagining the panic as things had started to go wrong. And when he'd dumped the car, what then?
Morgan got out and started along the pavement, doing what seemed natural. He turned into Leinster Terrace and there only a few yards away, was the busy Bays-water Road, Kensington Gardens opposite.
'And that's where I'd have gone in your situation, boyo,' Morgan said. 'Straight across the road, head down in the darkness and run like hell to the other side.'
When he crossed the road, he made automatically for the nearest entrance and followed the path, passing the Round Pond on his right. In spite of the hour, there were people about, the occasional jogger in tracksuit or early-morning riser exercising a dog.
He emerged at Queen's Gate, opposite the Albert Hall. From here, anything was possible. The underground would have been the obvious place to make for. Once on a tube train, the possibilities were endless.
He went back across Kensington Gardens to the place where Leinster Terrace joined the Bayswater Road and paused, full of anger and frustration, unable to let go.
'You must have gone somewhere, you bastard,' he said softly. 'But where?'
He crossed the road and started to walk along the pavement towards Queensway. It was hopeless, of course, he knew that as he paused wearily at the Italian restaurant on the corner and lit a cigarette.
There were a number of posters on the wall beside the main window of the restaurant. It was the pale, handsome face that caught his attention first, the dark eyes and the name Mikali in bold black type.
He started to turn away but the coincidence made him turn again to read the poster, remembering that according to the file Baker had shown him, Mikali had been one of the celebrities present in the hotel at the Cannes Film Festival when the Cretan had shot the Italian film director for the Black Brigade.
And then he saw the date on the poster and the time. Friday 21 July 1972, at 8.00 p.m.
It wasn't possible, it was absolutely crazy and yet he found himself turning and hurrying back along the pavement to Leinster Terrace. He stood there for a moment, imagining the Cretan dumping the car and emerging here.
In the far distance, he could see the dome of the Albert Hall above the trees. He crossed the road quickly and plunged into the Park.
He went down the steps from the Albert Memorial, crossed Kensington Gore, dodging the early-morning traffic and paused outside the front entrance of the Albert Hall. There was a selection of posters on the boards, advertising various concerts and their programmes. Daniel Barenboim, Previn, Moura Lympany and John Mikali. The Vienna Philharmonic and John Mikali playing Rachmaninov's Second Piano Concerto, Friday 21 July 1972 at 8.00 p.m.
'Oh, my God,' Morgan said aloud. 'This