By the time Carlyle reached the clinic, he was out of breath. A kitchen helper was standing by an open door, an unlit cigarette in her mouth. The woman nodded at Carlyle and began fiddling in her pocket for a box of matches. Nodding back, Carlyle slipped past and stepped inside, moving into a long corridor which, he guessed, led towards the back of the building. Ten yards down, on his left, was a set of doors leading to the swimming pool. Pushing them open, he found Falkirk standing in front of him, dressed in jeans, T-shirt and a pair of loafers.
‘Inspector.’ Falkirk frowned. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I’m here for you.’ Stepping closer, Carlyle could see that his quarry’s pupils were hugely dilated, a clear indication of drug use, and he looked unsteady on his feet. There were dark rings round the eyes and his face was puffy. He looked exhausted. All in all, the man was hardly an advert for two weeks’ R amp;R in the Alps.
‘Me?’ Falkirk made a half-hearted attempt at a smile.
Carlyle’s smile was equally false. ‘I have a warrant for your arrest,’ he said stiffly, patting his jacket pocket. After the cold outside, the heat of the spa made him feel suddenly drowsy. He stifled a yawn, the strong smell of chlorine reminding him of the days — more than thirty years before — when his dad had made him train with the Hammersmith Penguin Swimming Club at the Fulham Baths.
‘A warrant? I don’t think so,’ said Falkirk warily, not coming any closer.
Snapping from his reverie, Carlyle pulled the envelope out of his pocket and held it up for the Earl to see. ‘It’s all over, Gordon,’ he said. ‘Now we have to go back to London.’
‘No one calls me that.’ Falkirk took a couple of steps backwards. ‘And no one tells me what to do.’
Carlyle moved towards him. ‘We have to go now. We have a flight to catch.’
Falkirk grinned as he looked past Carlyle. ‘I don’t think so.’
Carlyle half-turned to see two security guards take up position on either side of him. Each man had a 9mm SIG-Sauer P220 semi-automatic pistol holstered at his side, standard Swiss Army issue.
‘Police,’ proclaimed Carlyle, holding up a hand.
‘Do they look like they give a toss?’ Falkirk snorted.
Not in the slightest, Carlyle thought, girding his loins for the trouble ahead.
As the first man reached for his gun, the inspector gave him three seconds of the pepper spray. Just like in the training video, the guy dropped his gun, fell to his knees and began clawing at his face. Carlyle then turned to his colleague, who backed away rapidly, tripping over a handily placed float and stumbling into the swimming pool. Ignoring Falkirk’s hysterical laughter, Carlyle waited for the guy’s head to pop back up to the surface, and gave him a spray too. With the security guards now engaged in synchronised screaming, Carlyle regarded the tube in his hand with barely concealed admiration. This is great stuff, he thought. I must remember to get some of my own once I get home. Stepping back, he gave the kneeling man a satisfying kick in the ribs that sent him tumbling into the water after his colleague. Carlyle booted the SIG-Sauer into the pool for good measure, and looked up.
Falkirk was gone.
It took the inspector a couple of seconds to spot the Earl, who was now sprinting across the lawn outside, heading for the nearest trees, which were maybe 300 metres further up the mountain. Carlyle shook his head. ‘Where the hell are you going?’ he said to himself, wondering if he had the stamina to catch the younger man.
Outside, the air had darkened. Vicious-looking black clouds scudded across the sky and Carlyle could smell rain in the air. A fat droplet of water exploded on the gravel right in front of his feet, with the promise of much more to come. Head down, blood pumping, he took a deep breath and charged ahead — running straight into Rose, who had suddenly appeared in front of the clinic.
‘Falkirk!’ she gasped, as he bounced off her.
‘I know,’ said Carlyle, hopping from foot to foot, reluctant to stop moving as he eyed the fleeing figure in front of them. Belatedly, he realised that she was clutching her face. Pulling her hand away, he saw a nasty cut under her right eye, which was already half-closed. ‘Did he hit you?’
‘I tried to stop him.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah. Can you catch him?’
‘Sure,’ Carlyle quipped, despite the fact that Falkirk now had a lead of about 150 metres as he headed for the treeline. He handed the pepper spray back to Rose. ‘Get inside. Make sure the security goons don’t do a runner. Give them another blast of the spray if necessary. And get someone to call the local police.’
Setting a steady pace, Carlyle tried to ignore the burning sensation in his chest. Not for the first time recently, he wished that he’d spent more time in the gym. The adrenaline rush gained from clobbering those two security guys was wearing off, and he began to feel a creeping heaviness in his legs. The fact that he wasn’t exactly dressed for the occasion didn’t help either.
Not wishing to completely knacker himself before he caught up with his quarry, he let Falkirk stretch his lead slightly, confident that ultimately the man had nowhere to go. As far as the inspector could tell, the Earl had left the clinic with nothing that might help him evade capture for any length of time. Maybe he had a little cash in the pockets of his trousers but without a credit card, mobile phone or passport, he was well and truly fucked. That thought made Carlyle smile. Despite his own discomfort, he was perfectly happy to let the bastard continue spending his day running round a Swiss mountain in the cold and rain — with a bit of luck the blue-blooded bastard might even catch pneumonia.
As Falkirk disappeared among the trees, Carlyle slowed his pace even further. It took him another couple of minutes to reach the edge of the forest. Peering into the gloom, he could see that it was composed of a mix of pine and spruce trees, planted closely together in precise rows. Hesitating, he looked back the way he had come. Rose had disappeared inside the building. Surely, someone must have called the gendarmerie by now. Assuming that the cavalry would be coming from Villeneuve, situated just down the mountain by the side of the lake, or maybe from Montreux next door, the police should be able to reach the clinic in ten minutes or so. But when he listened for the sound of sirens, there was nothing.
Bloody cops, Carlyle thought. They are all the same the world over; always taking their own sweet time; never around when you need them.
He tried to imagine what Falkirk’s plan of action might be. To his right was a narrow, muddy path leading deeper into the forest. Carlyle could make out a number of footprints, although he had no idea whether any of them belonged to Falkirk. Careful not to lose his footing, he set off again.
Less than twenty yards into the trees, he could no longer see back to the open ground at the edge of the forest. Apart from the path he was following, the inspector had no sense of where he had come from: it was just trees, trees and more trees. They all looked the same to him. Surrounded by nature, he suddenly felt rather sorry for himself.
Any feelings of self-pity were cut short when a lump of wood was smashed across the back of his head. Carlyle staggered forward. A second blow sent him to his knees and he felt cold mud seeping through the fabric of his trousers. He stretched his hands out in front of him to halt his fall, but a third blow sent him down fully. The last thought to pop into his head, before the lights went out, was, Oh shit!
A boot in the ribs brought him back out of the blackness. As he came to, Carlyle realised that he had mud in his mouth, a piece of twig up his nose, and the mother of all headaches. Blinking, he waited for another kick. When it did not come he lay still, trying to clear his head. He listened as hard as he could, but still there were no sirens. A bird squawked overhead and he heard footsteps approaching from somewhere behind him.
‘On your feet!’ Falkirk grabbed him by the hair and, with a grunt, pulled him upright. Feeling a serrated blade against his neck, Carlyle found his feet. Looking down along the end of his nose, he recognised the familiar red handle of an outsize Swiss Army knife.
‘Rather appropriate, don’t you think?’ Falkirk remarked grimly. His pupils seemed as big as pennies. For the first time, it occurred to Carlyle that he might have a real problem on his hands.
‘You are about to be done in by the finest technology that the Swiss have to offer,’ Falkirk continued. He pulled the knife from Carlyle’s neck and waved it airily above his head. ‘It was either that or drowning you in chocolate.’
‘There are worse ways to go, I suppose.’ The inspector gingerly felt the back of his head. Even more gingerly, he gave it a gentle shake. The pain bounced around his brain for a few seconds, then resumed its residency in the base of his skull. He tried to step away casually from his drugged-up captor, but Falkirk skipped forward, pressing the knife firmly against his windpipe.
‘This is getting out of hand,’ Carlyle coughed.
‘You should have left me alone,’ Falkirk snarled.
‘What are you on?’ Carlyle asked, injecting as much reasonableness into his voice as he could manage. ‘Crystal meth? Speed? Cocaine?’
‘Poppers,’ Falkirk replied casually.
Poppers, okay. Carlyle struggled to sift through what he knew about poppers — amyl nitrite, used to enhance sexual pleasure. As far as he could recall, they weren’t supposed to make you violent. ‘Look,’ he said quietly, taking each word slowly in case he had called it wrong and Falkirk tried to chop out his Adam’s apple, ‘we have to go back. This needs to get sorted out. It will get sorted out, but we have to go to London to do that.’
‘No!’ A look of panic flashed through Falkirk’s eyes as he flicked the blade away from Carlyle’s chin and thrust it twice into the inspector’s stomach, sawing at his ribcage.
‘Fuck!’ Carlyle staggered back, holding his gut.
He looked down, expecting to see his own entrails spilling through his fingers. Almost disappointingly, there wasn’t that much to see — and only a little blood. The pain, however, was intense.
Am I dying? he wondered.
How fucking banal.
Is this really it?