Excerpt

One

The man strolled along cobbled streets, past sleepy villas and gardens where tough grasses rose in bristling clumps from the parched earth and tall yellow flowers sprang up in haughty isolation, bursts of colour that came as welcome relief among the white painted walls and sun-baked brown of the earth. The walls reflected the sun's warmth back at him, while the occasional raised voice drifting out from open windows provided scant evidence that he wasn't the sole person alive in the village, merely the only one foolish enough to venture out when the sun was at its zenith. A donkey watched him disconsolately from the shade of a tatter-roofed lean-to, and a pair of scrawny chickens pecked at the dust by a wall. All else was still. Even the flowers' stunted shadows were straight and motionless as sentries.

Soon the cobbles gave way to concrete and he left the village behind, climbing a narrow lane that led into the hills beyond.

His course was bracketed by solid but irregular stone walls that bordered the road, guiding him between fields of golden cereal on his left – doubtless modified to flourish in this arid environment – their crowns unmoving in the absence of any breeze, and olive groves to the right. Scythe-winged birds patrolled the skies, making nimble turns and graceful swoops as they harvested the abundant insects. Their occasional shrill calls were the only sound and their busy energy belied the heat, seeming deliberately designed to taunt or perhaps challenge the two much larger black birds that huddled on a section of wall. The roosting birds ignored them, the epitome of indifference, but flew away on lazy wings at his approach.

At the top of the hill he paused to take a sip of ice-cold water from his flask and look back at the village where it nestled in the shallow valley below, the mix of flat and pantile roofs gazing back at him through a ripple of heat haze. Two days it had taken him to get here from Opal, the capital. The first spent in comparative comfort on an air-conditioned train, the second less so on a trio of aged buses that grew more dilapidated with each change of vehicle, until it seemed unlikely that the last and smallest could complete the journey. The ebb and flow of passengers getting on and off as the bus wound its way from village to village ensured that travelling conditions varied between mildly uncomfortable and borderline intolerable.

His journey had ended at last in a wheeze of hydraulics as the bus drew up in a vast building that had obviously started life as a barn. This was the end of the line. Two tired-looking vehicles, indistinguishable from the one that had brought him here, stood idle, offering the promise of escape back to civilisation at some point. He wondered if the terminus might have been a factor in the choice of location. It was easy to imagine a person getting this far and simply lacking the will, the energy, to go any further.

Even so, he could understand the attraction of this backwater, this refuge from the modern world; low on convenience, perhaps, but there was no denying the setting possessed a certain charm. Life didn't so much slow down here as stumble to a halt and take a break. It was beautiful, languid, tranquil – the sort of place a person might come to retire. Or to hide.

Putting the flask away, he shouldered his pack and resumed walking. Not far to go now.

The way dipped briefly downward and then up again. From the crest of this second rise he could see his destination for the first time: a little ahead a group of low buildings clustered beside a track that led left from the lane he was treading. At the heart of this cluster stood a substantial sturdy-looking cottage, its white walls blazing in reflected sunlight. Two barns and a smaller, squat building completed the set, but they were of no consequence.

Beside him, a wall branched off from the one he had been following; stretching away from the road at an approximate right angle, it marked the divide between two fields. A single tree bearing sparse foliage grew a little way along its length. He left the road, scrambling over the wall and following the field divider as far as the tree. Here he stopped, knowing that the sturdy trunk would help mask his outline against the skyline should anyone in the cottage happen to glance this way at the wrong moment. He shucked his backpack and took out a pair of binoculars – slim, matt black, and lightweight, with exaggerated eyepieces that cupped the side of his face. The cottage jumped nearer, its whitewashed walls similar to those of the buildings he had left behind in the village. An adjustment to the focus and the walls lost their solidity, becoming semi-transparent. He scanned from right to left, ignoring the ghosts of furniture that scrolled across his view, until he reached what was evidently the kitchen.

Here he found them: two people, both seated at a table, presumably eating. The view wasn't clear enough to distinguish detail, but he was sufficiently practiced to determine that one was likely male, the other female. Another adjustment to the focus and the figures acquired a red glow that pulsed in time to their heartbeat and the flow of blood being pumped around their bodies. The binoculars completed their assessment. The man was unknown, presumably the husband – too insignificant to be detailed in the brief he had received – but the woman returned a ninety-two per cent probability that she was his target.

More than good enough.

Placing the binoculars down on the top of the rough wall, the man lifted a compact valise from his pack, carefully took out the first components, and began. He worked with calm, unhurried efficiency, and the gun swiftly took shape in his hands.

The final piece was provided by the binoculars, which split when given a gentle twist, one half clipping onto the stock to provide a targeting scope.