Quantum of Tweed: The Man with the Nissan Micra. Conn Iggulden

you have it exactly. That was Albert’s expression. Admittedly, it was not what he hoped for, but that is often the way with men of a certain age.

      When he was close to the top, Albert stopped in frustration. Two bodyguards accompanied his target. They wore dark suits and sunglasses, which was more than enough to let him know their role in Schenk’s life. Albert could hardly take aim while they looked on. Shaking with tension, Albert saw a small track leading across the face of the final ridge. He didn’t hesitate and edged his way along it, his back pressed to the rough stone, mere inches from the abyss.

      The track narrowed until he was convinced a sudden gust would snatch him off. He couldn’t turn and the tips of his black Oxford shoes were actually over the edge, with nothing but air below.

      Albert was staring upwards as Peter Schenk launched above his head, rising into the blue sky. It was time. Albert tried to draw his gun as Schenk began to race his hang-glider in great swoops, back and forth across the edge of the ridge. The silencer snagged in Albert’s coat and he pulled the entire thing over his head in his panic. One last yank revealed the gleaming weapon but sent the coat fluttering down. Albert steadied himself as Schenk came zooming along, drunk on danger and adrenalin.

      Albert felt rather the same way himself. He braced one arm with the other and fired until the silenced gun was empty. In response, Schenk brushed a hand across his face as if batting away a wasp. In a rage, Albert considered throwing the gun at him.

      At that moment, Schenk looked across and saw Albert on the ledge, halfway up a cliff, as if suspended in mid-air. To his astonishment, Albert waved weakly at him. For an instant, Schenk wavered in his flight. His hand slipped from the control bar and his hang-glider drifted too close to the cliff face. It was then that the yellow wing snagged and tore itself apart. In a heartbeat it went from a swooping bird to a collection of struts and ragged cloth.

      Albert watched Peter Schenk spiral all the way down, overcome with something like remorse. His debt to the bank would be reduced, of course, but a man had lost his life to save a menswear shop. Somehow, Albert could not regret it. There had been something quite poignant in the way Schenk waved back at him before falling. Life, Albert reflected, did have a way of catching you unprepared.

      Chapter Three

      The following morning, Albert stirred from troubled sleep to reach out and pick up the phone by his bed. He had bought the old-fashioned item in a fanciful mood, then found that a rotary dial was nowhere near as much fun as he remembered. Calling a mobile number took ages. As he pressed the bulky receiver to his ear, he realised the ringing was still going on. He leapt out of bed like a salmon, crossing the room to the still dusty coat he had retrieved from the bottom of the cliff. It was the special phone and he tried to calm his breathing as he took the call.

      ‘Yes, Mr Hawking?’ he said, then clapped a hand over his mouth. There was a long silence at the other end before he heard the mechanical voice he knew so well.

      ‘You think this is Stephen Hawking?’ the voice asked. Even through the electronic disguise, Albert could hear the surprise.

      ‘It’s my nickname for you, that’s all,’ he said, wincing.

      ‘It will do. Good work yesterday. For a man known as “Bullet”, you are more imaginative than I was told to expect.’

      Albert Rossi digested this for a moment, thinking back to the assassin he had run over in his Micra two weeks before.

      ‘I … work with whatever is to hand,’ he said, trying to sound calm and generally relaxed.

      ‘I have another job. Are you available?’

      Albert thought of the money he still owed and the constant drain on his bank account from the general lack of interest in Eastcote menswear. Despite the terror he had experienced on the cliff at Dunstable, despite the sweat that had dribbled into his eyes, he had never felt more alive. Cufflinks and bow ties were nowhere near as exciting. Perhaps one day he would even visit a casino – and not just to use the men’s room this time.

      ‘Absolutely,’ he said. ‘Drop the details off with the money. The usual place. Oh, and I’ll need some bullets.’

      ‘I see. What kind?’

      Albert panicked. There is something about a pistol that makes grown men want to pick it up. He’d spent part of the previous evening posing with it in front of a mirror. Where had he left the thing? As the voice asked again, he spotted the handle sticking out from under his pillow. Not the handle, the ‘grip’, he reminded himself. Or possibly the ‘butt’; he really had no idea. New sweat broke out on his forehead as he read out the tiny lettering on the gun.

      ‘Um … Colt Government 1911. Dot forty-five.’

      It was heavy and square in his hand, but he felt more confident just holding it. A Colt 45! A piece of America in an Englishman’s hand. Glorious.

      ‘Very well. I’ll put a couple of full clips in the envelope.’

      Albert was not exactly what you would call a ladies’ man. The great flames of youthful passion had passed him by, with the exception of one long summer in his late thirties when he dallied with an attractive widow and had even thought about asking her to marry him. The fires of his heart had turned to ash when he discovered she was also running around with the local butcher. Rather than compete with a man who could woo with sausages, Albert had sent her a dignified letter and ended it. Those golden days were still among his favourite memories, but as the sum total of a man’s experiences with the opposite sex, it was somewhat lacking.

      Perhaps as a result, the group of teenage girls hanging around the entrance to Eastcote station at midnight left him slightly flustered. As he waited for them to leave, he checked his watch at intervals. They seemed in no hurry and all he could do was stand near the crucial bin and read a newspaper.

      He may have had an air of innocence, despite his deadly new profession. It takes time to grow into a hard-faced assassin, even for one who had begun so promisingly. Albert’s wide-eyed nervousness may have caught the interest of the girls in the way that a mouse will attract a pack of feline predators; it is hard to say. It may have been the amount of alcohol the girls had consumed or the fact that they had a vague idea of asking a stranger to buy more. Either way, they surrounded him like lions on a wobbly zebra.