The Kill Artist

It won't be long now."
    * * *
    Shamron answered the telephone in the listening post before it could ring a second time. He listened without speaking, then gently replaced the receiver as if he had just been informed of the death of an old adversary. "It looks as though they've settled for the night," he said.
    "Where?"
    "A council estate in Hounslow near the airport."
    "And the team?"
    "In place, well hidden. They'll spend the night with her."
    "I'd feel better if I were there."
    "You have a long day ahead of you tomorrow. I suggest you get a few hours' sleep."
    But Gabriel went into the bedroom and returned a moment later, jacket on, nylon rucksack over his shoulder.
    Shamron said, "Where are you going?"
    "I need to take care of something personal."
    "Where are you going? When will you be back?"
    But Gabriel walked out without another word and followed the stairs down to the street. As he walked past the front of the building, he thought he saw Shamron eyeing him through a slit in the blinds. And as he moved closer to the Edgware Road, he had the uncomfortable feeling that Shamron had one of his teams watching him too.
    THIRTY-FOUR
    Hounslow, England
    The Toyota dropped them and then sped away. A car park bathed in yellow sodium light, a colony of stout redbrick council flats that looked like an industrial complex fallen on hard times. Jacqueline offered to carry her own bag, but Yusef wouldn't hear of it. He took her hand and led her across the car park, then across a common strewn with crushed beer cans and bits of broken toys. A red wagon with no front wheels. A headless baby with no clothing. A plastic pistol. Gabriel's pistol, thought Jacqueline, remembering the night in the hills of Provence, when he had tested her ability to shoot. Seemed like ages ago. A lifetime ago. A cat spit at them from the shadows. Jacqueline grabbed Yusef's elbow and nearly screamed. Then a dog began to bark, and the cat scampered along the sidewalk and slithered beneath a fence.
    "This is lovely, Yusef. Why didn't you tell me you kept a place in the country?"
    "Please don't talk until we're inside."
    He led her into a stairwell. Dead leaves and old newspaper in the corners, lime green walls, yellow light fixture overhead. The collision of color made them both look nauseated. They climbed two flights, then passed through a connecting door and walked the length of a long corridor. A cacophony of disharmonious sounds greeted them. A child screaming for its mother. A couple quarreling in Caribbean-accented English. A crackling radio blaring a play on the BBC, Tom Stoppard's The Real Thing. Yusef stopped in front of a doorway with the number 23 mounted below a security peephole. He unlocked the door, led her inside, switched on a small parchment-shaded lamp.
    The living room was empty except for one molting armchair and a television set. Its cord wound across the linoleum like a dead garden snake. Through a half-open door she could see a bedroom with a mattress on the floor. Through another doorway a small kitchen, a bag of groceries resting on the counter. Despite the absence of furnishings, the flat was impeccably clean and smelled of lemon air deodorizer.
    She opened the window; cold air poured in. Below the window ran a fence, and beyond the fence lay a football pitch. A half-dozen young men, dressed in colorful warm-up suits and woolen caps, kicked a ball about in the headlights of a car parked along the sideline. Their long shadows played over brick walls below Jacqueline's window. In the distance she could hear the soggy grumble of the motorway. An empty train rattled past on an elevated track. A jetliner screamed overhead.
    "I like what your friend's done with the place, Yusef, but it's not really my style. Why don't we check into one of the hotels at the airport? Someplace with room service and a decent bar."
    Yusef was in the kitchen, unpacking the bag of groceries. "If you're hungry I can make you something. There's some bread, cheese, eggs, a bottle of wine, and coffee and milk for the morning."
    Jacqueline walked into the kitchen. There was barely enough room for the two of them in the cramped space. "Don't be so literal. But this is a shithole. Why is it empty?"
    "My friend just got the place. He hasn't had a chance to move his things. He's been living with his parents."
    "He must be very happy, but I still don't know why we have to stay here tonight."
    "I told you, Dominique. We came here for reasons of