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The English Assassin :: Silva Daniel
Страница: 80 из 209Anna stepped to the side to allow the car to pass, but it stopped instead, and the man seated in the front passenger seat got out.
“Miss Rolfe?”
“Who wants to know?”
“You are Miss Anna Rolfe, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“We’re friends of Gabriel’s.”
IN Marseille, the Englishman left his car near the Abbaye St-Victor and walked through the darkened streets to the ferry terminal. As the vessel slipped over the calm waters of the harbor, he went downstairs to his private cabin. He lay on the narrow bed, listening to the news on Marseille radio. The bombing of the Müller Gallery in Paris was the lead item. Pascal Debré’s bomb had caused innocent casualties, a fact which made him feel a good deal more like a terrorist than a professional. Tomorrow he would go see the old signadora, and she would chase away the occhju with her rituals and prayers and absolve him of his sins, the way she always did.
He switched off the radio. In spite of his fatigue, he wanted a woman. It was always that way after the completion of an assignment. He closed his eyes and Elizabeth appeared in his thoughts-Elizabeth Conlin, the pretty Catholic girl from the Ballymurphy housing estates, West Belfast, Northern Ireland. She’d had the instincts of a good professional. When it was safe for them to meet, she would hang a violet scarf in her bedroom window, and the Englishman would crawl through the window and into her bed. They would make love with excruciating slowness, so as not to wake the other members of her family. The Englishman would cover her mouth with the palm of his hand to smother her cries. Once she bit down on the flesh of his thumb and drew blood. It stained the sheets of her bed. Afterward, he would lie next to her in the dark and let her tell him again how she wanted to get away from Belfast -away from the bombs and the British soldiers, the IRA gunmen and the Protestant paramilitaries. And when she thought he was sleeping, she would whisper a rosary, her penance for succumbing to the temptations of the Englishman’s body. The Englishman never allowed himself to fall asleep in Elizabeth Conlin’s bed.
One night when he crawled through her window, Elizabeth Conlin had been replaced by her father and two IRA enforcers. Somehow they knew the truth about the Englishman. He was driven to a remote farmhouse for what promised to be a lengthy and painful interrogation, followed by his own execution. Unlike most who had found themselves in a similar situation, the Englishman managed to leave the farmhouse alive. Four IRA men did not.
Within hours the Englishman was safely out of the province.
“Miss Rolfe?”
“Who wants to know?”
“You are Miss Anna Rolfe, aren’t you?”
She nodded.
“We’re friends of Gabriel’s.”
IN Marseille, the Englishman left his car near the Abbaye St-Victor and walked through the darkened streets to the ferry terminal. As the vessel slipped over the calm waters of the harbor, he went downstairs to his private cabin. He lay on the narrow bed, listening to the news on Marseille radio. The bombing of the Müller Gallery in Paris was the lead item. Pascal Debré’s bomb had caused innocent casualties, a fact which made him feel a good deal more like a terrorist than a professional. Tomorrow he would go see the old signadora, and she would chase away the occhju with her rituals and prayers and absolve him of his sins, the way she always did.
He switched off the radio. In spite of his fatigue, he wanted a woman. It was always that way after the completion of an assignment. He closed his eyes and Elizabeth appeared in his thoughts-Elizabeth Conlin, the pretty Catholic girl from the Ballymurphy housing estates, West Belfast, Northern Ireland. She’d had the instincts of a good professional. When it was safe for them to meet, she would hang a violet scarf in her bedroom window, and the Englishman would crawl through the window and into her bed. They would make love with excruciating slowness, so as not to wake the other members of her family. The Englishman would cover her mouth with the palm of his hand to smother her cries. Once she bit down on the flesh of his thumb and drew blood. It stained the sheets of her bed. Afterward, he would lie next to her in the dark and let her tell him again how she wanted to get away from Belfast -away from the bombs and the British soldiers, the IRA gunmen and the Protestant paramilitaries. And when she thought he was sleeping, she would whisper a rosary, her penance for succumbing to the temptations of the Englishman’s body. The Englishman never allowed himself to fall asleep in Elizabeth Conlin’s bed.
One night when he crawled through her window, Elizabeth Conlin had been replaced by her father and two IRA enforcers. Somehow they knew the truth about the Englishman. He was driven to a remote farmhouse for what promised to be a lengthy and painful interrogation, followed by his own execution. Unlike most who had found themselves in a similar situation, the Englishman managed to leave the farmhouse alive. Four IRA men did not.
Within hours the Englishman was safely out of the province.