The train was slowing as it pulled into South Kensington. Gormley’s heart gave a little lurch in his chest. So close to home, and yet so far. Dragosani had a light overcoat folded over his arm. He showed Gormley the silencer of his weapon, let it peep out of the folds of the overcoat for a moment, and reminded him: ‘No heroics.’
There was a handful of people on the platform: young people mainly, and a pair of down-and-outs with a bottle in a paper bag between them. Even if Gormley looked for help, he couldn’t find much here. ‘Just leave the station by the same route you take every night,’ said Dragosani at Gormley’s shoulder.
Gormley’s heart was hammering now. He knew full
well that if he went with these men it was all up with him. He was an older hand at this game than the two foreign agents. When Dragosani had told him his and his squat little companion’s names, that had been as good as saying: ‘But it won’t do you any good, for you won’t be around to tell anyone!’ And so he must escape from them – but how?
They left the underground onto Pelham Street, walked down the Brompton Road to Queen’s Gate. ‘I cross here, at the lights,’ Gormley said. But as they reached the parking lanes straddling the central reservation Dragosani’s grip tightened on his arm.
‘We have a car here,’ he said, drawing Gormley to the right and along the line of parked vehicles towards an anonymous-looking Ford. Dragosani had bought the car second-hand (tenth-hand, he suspected) and cash down, no questions asked. It would last only as long as his and Max Batu’s visit. Then it would be found burned-out in some suburban lane. But it was then, as they approached the car, that Gormley saw his chance.
Not twenty-five yards away a police patrol car pulled into an empty space and a uniformed constable got out and began checking the doors of the parked cars. A routine check, Gormley guessed. Or more properly, where he was concerned, a miracle!
Dragosani felt the sudden tension in Gormley, sensed his move before he could begin to make it. Batu had just opened the nearside front and rear doors of the Ford, was turning back towards Dragosani and Gormley, when his partner hissed: ‘Now, Max!’
Unprepared, still Batu instantly adopted his killing crouch, his moon face undergoing its monstrous metamorphosis. Dragosani maintained his grip on Gormley, looked away at the last moment. Gormley had opened his mouth to yell for help, but all that came out was a croak. He saw Batu’s face silhouetted against the night,
and one eye which was a yellow slit while the other was round and green and throbbing as if filled with sentient pus! Something passed from that face to Gormley as fast as the thrust of a mental knife; its razor edge located his spirit, his very soul, and opened them up! Except for what little traffic passed in the street, all was quiet, and yet Gormley heard the cacophonic gonging of some great cracked bell from deep inside himself, and knew it was his heart.
With that it should have been finished, but not quite. Thrown backward by the shock of Batu’s awful power, Gormley slammed loudly against the wing of a car parked behind the Ford. Along the street the constable’s face turned enquiringly in their direction as a second policeman got out of the patrol car. Worse, another vehicle, a blue Porsche, pulled in with a screech of brakes, its headlights dazzling where they picked the three figures out and pinned them against the darkness. In another moment the Porsche seemed to eject a tall young man into the street, his strong face concerned as he grabbed hold of Gormley to steady him.
‘Uncle?’ he said, staring into the other’s bulging eyes, his blue face. ‘My God! It must be his heart!’ The two policemen were already hurrying to see what was happening.
Dragosani found himself almost paralysed by the changing situation. Everything was going wrong. He made an effort to regain control, whispered to Max Batu: ‘Get into the car!’ Then he turned to the stranger. By now the policemen were on hand, offering assistance.