1 Part Four: Unexpected Reunion
The news of Swann's death did very little to improve Ran's mood. It hadn't been fabulous ever since the unexpected blast from the past, but recent events had proved that however bad you thought things were, they could always get worse. Open the mysterious envelope and claim your prize! Congratulations, you've won a sensational day-trip to Edinburgh where you will get to talk tough to some pompous policemen who will cease treating you like an eight year old child when you wave the magic piece of paper at them. You'll then be interviewed and taken very, very seriously by very, very serious men in suits and to round off your day will be interviewed for the BBC! You too can feel like a genuine legal hotshot!
Then Ran had arrived home to watch the late night news and realise that he had sorely misjudged the nature of the case.
As a lawyer, he wasn't supposed to have gotten involved until the action was over and everyone who was going to die had already done so. When all the pieces were on the board and the lawyers played the game out amongst themselves. Swann's death had effectively knocked over the figurines and revealed Ran to be amongst the corpses and Schwartz, part of the same story. He produced evidence to show that someone had given away information to Crawford that had been used to plan a robbery, not an execution. Big news, dramatic development.
Swann comes down to assist in the investigation of the leak, not as the suspect source only to kill himself with a poison pill the moment he's left alone. Had the man hanged himself with his belt or flung himself off the roof, Ran and everyone else could have seen it as the last self- confessional act of a man consumed with guilt. But cyanide pills? Not exactly something you just happen to have on you, in the jacket-pocket: aspirin for those occasional headaches, antihistamine for those nasty bouts of hay fever and cyanide in case you feel the need to top yourself and just aren't going to get home for hours.
All the confidence he'd felt at knowing there was someone behind Crawford had vanished as he was left to wonder frantically who was behind Swann. And just what kind of organisation he was dealing with when the operatives were prepared to take their own lives so easily and quickly. If Swann had been behind Crawford, and someone was behind Swann, just how deep did this thing go?
He thought the action was over and the moves had been made, but it was slowly dawning on Ran that the game was still in progress and he wasn't one of the players, but just another piece on the board.
It might have been his ever souring mood, combined with general crankiness that caused him to pay less attention than he usually would to the feeling that he was being watched. He pushed it to the back of his mind when he was greeted in the office with a round of applause and a sudden hand on his shoulder which belonged to one of the senior partners, Finlay Campbell. "Got a moment to see me in my office, Ran?"
He nodded and followed the older man into the room. Campbell shut the door behind them and sighed. "Look, I've got to be in court in half an hour, so I'll make this brief. Crawford has a previous conviction for robbery and I was the one who defended him in court ten years ago. That's why he came here. Though when I say defended, represented might have been a better word. He pleaded guilty- not on my advice, but he seemed to have reached the conclusion that when the game was up, the game was up. My job was to present him as a remorseful man who posed no danger to society and whose crimes were committed under circumstances likely to be repeated."
Campbell sighed slightly. "Of course, I could have stood up and said 'Your Honour, my client would like to state that you are a first rate arsehole and your wife shags donkeys' and it couldn't have gone worse. This guy had broken into several country mansions of extremely rich European businessmen and he was going to get it up the arse with a chainsaw regardless of any defence I put forward. You see, until then country mansions just didn't get robbed, and this little oik had led to a sharp increase in insurance prices in such places. Repercussions would hit the pockets of every member of the landed gentry in the UK, not least the judge, Lord McLean."
Ran snorted. "And a harsh sentence would be seen as a deterrent and be smiled up by insurers?"
"Bingo. He got seven years."
"Jesus," Ran muttered.
Campbell nodded. "Unprecedented and fucking unbelievable. Not only that but someone took major trouble to mess up his parole so the poor bastard served just about the entire time. So you can understand I took it as a measure of the man's character that he actually came back here for legal advice. Blamed no one but himself for what happened. A man of dignity and humility. They kept pulling him in for questioning and he even handled that stoically as part of the price he had to pay. I never got to represent the guy again, by the time he was released I'd moved onwards and upwards, but he always exchanged a few words.
"Look, what I'm getting at is I believe the contents of that letter as much as I cannot believe he was a part of what happened at the weekend. It doesn't add up and what with last night's events … things are getting interesting."
Ran smiled without humour. "Interesting as 'may you live in interesting times' interesting."
"Exactly. Another day, another dead body. Question is, where does that leave you?"
"I've been asking myself that all night."
"Quite simply, it puts you right here, until Crawford is charged and you can speak with him. Any progress you made yesterday has basically been undone by Swann's DIY demise." Campbell picked up a pen from the mess on his desk and twirled it absently in his fingers. "The police were right when they said that letter had little value as evidence, but what it did do was provide a plausible scenario, especially with the lack of any other explanation. Robbery was a much more convincing motive than terrorism and public opinion would have been with us, even if public sympathy wasn't. Greed is something much easier to understand than intra-European, sub- factional splinter groups. And if Swann had done himself in with a method that was a little more conventional…"
"Tell me about it," Ran commiserated. "But the post-mortem could show up something different. Sub-arachnoid haemorrhage …"
Campbell frowned and shook his head. "I've got some police contacts. PM results aren't through yet, but they know he took a pill. The word is that the bloke who found Swann walked in and saw him pop something in his mouth and swallow it, upon which - get this – he says 'bye-bye' and sits down. The guy tried to get him to cough it up, but was fought off and a few minutes later, Swann's dead. And suddenly it's all cloak and dagger again while this terrorist crap comes smashing right back down on us."
Ran broke the silence that followed. "But if Swann was working for someone, or being used by someone … what does that do to what Crawford gave us? Brad Crawford told us he was being coerced into carrying out a robbery, but could the letter simply have been part of the cover up deal? Why not just tell us he was being forced to commit a murder?"
"Listen Ran," Campbell said quietly, trying to calm down the young man. "Don't let that distract you. You're forgetting who Crawford is, what he did." At the lack of response from the redhead, Campbell rolled his eyes. "Crawford hit maybe five places during a period of three months, mostly empty places, but if someone was there, the man was in and out before a soul knew about it. No knives, no guns. Now knowing this, it is plausible that someone might want to enlist his services to burgle a country mansion, especially if they had inside knowledge that someone as rich as Fischer was going to be staying there. That kind of coercion made sense as to the best of my knowledge Brad Crawford has not committed another robbery since then and was unlikely to be tempted. What doesn't make sense is murder. The fact is, you don't hire a joiner for a burst pipe.
"Now this suicide might suggest there's someone behind all this, but it's irrelevant. No matter what went wrong, no matter what happened in that bedroom on Sunday night, Brad Crawford went in there to rob the place. Why there were four corpses behind him when he left is something we aren't going to find out until we get a chance to talk to him so until we do I suggest you occupy yourself with other matters."
Ran raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"
"The never-ending queue of time-wasters, who this morning include one of our regulars, a Mr McLeod. He can get quite excitable, but I think you'll find the experience a rewarding reminder of keeping your feet on the ground. Good luck."
Ran sighed and turned to leave.
"Oh and Ran? You don't happen to have The Envelope, do you?"
"No. I don't think I've had it since before I left for Edinburgh."
Campbell winced. "Damn. I was just asking on the off-chance it wasn't buried in here. I'll go ask Linda to find it for me, but first I've got a court appointment to get to."
* * *
He had driven around the block a few times, trying to find the car. He knew the make, colour and reg number, but with the central Glasgow one way systems and parking restrictions, it might not even be anywhere near the office. He had found a good spot to wait in that gave a clear view of the entrance and unless there was a back door he could just see Ran when he came out and follow him. He wouldn't intercept him then, but he'd find out where the car was and weigh up the options for later.
He had the home address, courtesy of certain police contacts, but that was a last resort – you never knew who would be watching. Getting in might not too easy either. He could manage it, he was sure, but he had to get in without a trace. If Ran came in and spotted something wasn't right he could freak out or panic before he could get to him which would cause all sorts of inconveniences.
There was a noise from across the road as one of the heavy iron frames was slowly swung open to let in some air. He looked up and felt a start of surprise when he saw the redhead standing by the window. He stood for a moment with one hand on the frame, letting the breeze ruffle those deep red strands before retreating inside. He had the strangest feeling of disbelief that the man could be so unaware that he was being watched. There was something frighteningly intimate about it, and yet the man by the window was completely ignorant of the whole thing.
A man emerged from the entrance to Boyd and Mason, striding purposefully across the street as he vanished into a narrow road that crossed West Regent Street. He re-emerged a few moments later behind the wheel of a blue BMW and vanished into the stream of traffic.
He got out of the car and made his way over to the gap the BMW driver had vanished into and found himself in an underground, permit-holders-only carpark. He entered quietly on the balls of his feet and peered cautiously at the four rows of cars, minus one space for a BMW. He spotted the car he was looking for, and was about to approach, when he saw something that him glad of his stealth.
A pair of trainer clad feet were between the front wheels of the car in question, a red Vauxhall Vectra. There was a dull metallic sound as something weighty was placed on the concrete floor and a scraping sound as another solid steel implement was dragged along the ground before being picked up.
He retreated from the subterranean chamber with additional caution and upon returning to his car looked around for a different vehicle. There it was, a white van hailing from a breakdown garage – the paintwork looking far better than the bodywork. He made a note of the address and phone number before flipping open his mobile phone.
* * *
Ran sat in the traffic jam and idly wondered just why he had never bothered to put the effort into finding an alternative route home from work. He switched on the car radio and abruptly winced as his ears were assaulted with the awful noise that passed as pop music in this country. He adjusted the dial until the talentless drone was replaced with the soothing Scottish accent a newsreader.
"… would be fighting these latest proposals tooth and nail, stating it wasn't for Brussels to impose its own low standards on Great Britain. Detectives in Glasgow are appealing for more witnesses after a man, as yet unnamed until the family are informed, was found stabbed in Partick this afternoon. Witness say two youths were seen running from the scene…"
With an irritable sigh, Ran grabbed a cassette from the overloaded glove compartment and slammed it into the radio. The last thing he wanted to hear was more depressing news. Hearing about violence and death in Glasgow was not helping, especially when he couldn't shake his sense of unease. He smiled as Gomez started to play and turned up the volume.
As he reached the stretch of the Kingston Bridge that passed Scotland Street School, he was finally able to shift gears and put his foot down on the accelerator.
And a couple of hundred yards behind his Vauxhall Vectra, another driver was rather surprised and more than a touch disappointed not to see Ran die in a horrific fireball as his car failed to go out of control and crash into the back of the slowing traffic ahead.
There was a grinding sensation as he turned the key that made Ran suspicious that he might need to get the locks seen to, before it died on him completely and left him locked out. He would have seen about this straight away if it hadn't been for the piece of paper on the floor.
It was several feet away from the door, much further than it could possibly have reached if pushed under the door or through the letterbox. What was more suspicious was that it had been placed exactly central in the corridor. The most telling sign of all this, however, were the words 'READ THIS NOW RAN' that someone had written across the top.
He began reading as he picked it up, his other hand groping for the door, even though he was still undecided as to which side he should be standing on.
'I have written this so as not to alarm you,' it began without any sense of irony, 'and that it won't come as a shock to discover there is an intruder in your flat. Please bear in mind that I mean you no harm and when you feel like venturing into the living room, I hope I will not be met with violence until you have at least heard what I have to say.'
Ran felt his eyes narrow as he began to slowly walk towards the living room. On the way, he stopped to grab a large golf umbrella from the cupboard. It wasn't a katana, but it was better than nothing. He backed up against the wall opposite the open lounge door, so as to gain the maximum perspective afforded from this side of the door. Edging forwards he examined the interior as it slowly came into view. He saw the far end of the hateful fireplace before a hand came into view. Leaning forwards, and not moving any further, he stretched his head and shoulders as a black sleeve also became visible. It led to a shoulder and then to a rolled back balaclava that perched on a blonde head, at which point Ran leaned too far and fell over in a rare absence of grace, landing with a thump as the umbrella rolled away from him.
He quickly rolled onto his bottom and scrambled back against the wall as his intruder loomed before him. Dressed completely in figure-hugging black and a posture that was uncomfortable, impatient and disturbingly familiar. Another step brought his face into the light and confirmed his suspicions.
"Hello Aya," said Yohji Kudou in a voice that was far from amused. "I think we need to talk."
Ran glared at the blonde from his position on the floor. "Well? Talk."
"You wanna move nearer or something? You look like an idiot pressed up against the wall like that."
"I'll move closer when I hear something that interests me," Ran growled.
Yohji glared back through narrowed verdant eyes, then he shrugged. "Fine. Would you be interested to know that someone tried to kill you today?"
Ran swallowed and then climbed to his feet. "That would interest me," he managed. "But just how would you know that?"
"I'm the one that saved you. Feel free to thank me later."
Ran clutched at his head as he felt a headache begin to start. "But how … when … just who is trying to kill me?"
Yohji looked down at the floor. "Someone who's put an awful lot of time and effort into convincing the country that Schwartz killed Johannes Fischer and isn't very pleased about anyone suggesting the contrary."
Ran's knees gave out again and he slid down the wall to the floor. Yohji started to move towards him, but Ran tried to fight him off, pushing and shouting. Yohji overpowered him and clamped a hand over his mouth, pining Ran's arm against the wall with his elbow. "Listen to me," Yohji breathed, his face only a fractions away from Ran's. "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to trust me Aya. You know the drill. You run out into the street, they'll kill you. You phone the police, they'll kill you. You get into your car and leave town; they'll kill you. I'm all you've got right now." He removed his hand from Ran's mouth as the fight went out of the younger man.
"Why are you here anyway?" Ran whispered.
Yohji smiled. "I'm not here because I think Brad Crawford is innocent. I'm here because I know Crawford is innocent."
The news of Swann's death did very little to improve Ran's mood. It hadn't been fabulous ever since the unexpected blast from the past, but recent events had proved that however bad you thought things were, they could always get worse. Open the mysterious envelope and claim your prize! Congratulations, you've won a sensational day-trip to Edinburgh where you will get to talk tough to some pompous policemen who will cease treating you like an eight year old child when you wave the magic piece of paper at them. You'll then be interviewed and taken very, very seriously by very, very serious men in suits and to round off your day will be interviewed for the BBC! You too can feel like a genuine legal hotshot!
Then Ran had arrived home to watch the late night news and realise that he had sorely misjudged the nature of the case.
As a lawyer, he wasn't supposed to have gotten involved until the action was over and everyone who was going to die had already done so. When all the pieces were on the board and the lawyers played the game out amongst themselves. Swann's death had effectively knocked over the figurines and revealed Ran to be amongst the corpses and Schwartz, part of the same story. He produced evidence to show that someone had given away information to Crawford that had been used to plan a robbery, not an execution. Big news, dramatic development.
Swann comes down to assist in the investigation of the leak, not as the suspect source only to kill himself with a poison pill the moment he's left alone. Had the man hanged himself with his belt or flung himself off the roof, Ran and everyone else could have seen it as the last self- confessional act of a man consumed with guilt. But cyanide pills? Not exactly something you just happen to have on you, in the jacket-pocket: aspirin for those occasional headaches, antihistamine for those nasty bouts of hay fever and cyanide in case you feel the need to top yourself and just aren't going to get home for hours.
All the confidence he'd felt at knowing there was someone behind Crawford had vanished as he was left to wonder frantically who was behind Swann. And just what kind of organisation he was dealing with when the operatives were prepared to take their own lives so easily and quickly. If Swann had been behind Crawford, and someone was behind Swann, just how deep did this thing go?
He thought the action was over and the moves had been made, but it was slowly dawning on Ran that the game was still in progress and he wasn't one of the players, but just another piece on the board.
It might have been his ever souring mood, combined with general crankiness that caused him to pay less attention than he usually would to the feeling that he was being watched. He pushed it to the back of his mind when he was greeted in the office with a round of applause and a sudden hand on his shoulder which belonged to one of the senior partners, Finlay Campbell. "Got a moment to see me in my office, Ran?"
He nodded and followed the older man into the room. Campbell shut the door behind them and sighed. "Look, I've got to be in court in half an hour, so I'll make this brief. Crawford has a previous conviction for robbery and I was the one who defended him in court ten years ago. That's why he came here. Though when I say defended, represented might have been a better word. He pleaded guilty- not on my advice, but he seemed to have reached the conclusion that when the game was up, the game was up. My job was to present him as a remorseful man who posed no danger to society and whose crimes were committed under circumstances likely to be repeated."
Campbell sighed slightly. "Of course, I could have stood up and said 'Your Honour, my client would like to state that you are a first rate arsehole and your wife shags donkeys' and it couldn't have gone worse. This guy had broken into several country mansions of extremely rich European businessmen and he was going to get it up the arse with a chainsaw regardless of any defence I put forward. You see, until then country mansions just didn't get robbed, and this little oik had led to a sharp increase in insurance prices in such places. Repercussions would hit the pockets of every member of the landed gentry in the UK, not least the judge, Lord McLean."
Ran snorted. "And a harsh sentence would be seen as a deterrent and be smiled up by insurers?"
"Bingo. He got seven years."
"Jesus," Ran muttered.
Campbell nodded. "Unprecedented and fucking unbelievable. Not only that but someone took major trouble to mess up his parole so the poor bastard served just about the entire time. So you can understand I took it as a measure of the man's character that he actually came back here for legal advice. Blamed no one but himself for what happened. A man of dignity and humility. They kept pulling him in for questioning and he even handled that stoically as part of the price he had to pay. I never got to represent the guy again, by the time he was released I'd moved onwards and upwards, but he always exchanged a few words.
"Look, what I'm getting at is I believe the contents of that letter as much as I cannot believe he was a part of what happened at the weekend. It doesn't add up and what with last night's events … things are getting interesting."
Ran smiled without humour. "Interesting as 'may you live in interesting times' interesting."
"Exactly. Another day, another dead body. Question is, where does that leave you?"
"I've been asking myself that all night."
"Quite simply, it puts you right here, until Crawford is charged and you can speak with him. Any progress you made yesterday has basically been undone by Swann's DIY demise." Campbell picked up a pen from the mess on his desk and twirled it absently in his fingers. "The police were right when they said that letter had little value as evidence, but what it did do was provide a plausible scenario, especially with the lack of any other explanation. Robbery was a much more convincing motive than terrorism and public opinion would have been with us, even if public sympathy wasn't. Greed is something much easier to understand than intra-European, sub- factional splinter groups. And if Swann had done himself in with a method that was a little more conventional…"
"Tell me about it," Ran commiserated. "But the post-mortem could show up something different. Sub-arachnoid haemorrhage …"
Campbell frowned and shook his head. "I've got some police contacts. PM results aren't through yet, but they know he took a pill. The word is that the bloke who found Swann walked in and saw him pop something in his mouth and swallow it, upon which - get this – he says 'bye-bye' and sits down. The guy tried to get him to cough it up, but was fought off and a few minutes later, Swann's dead. And suddenly it's all cloak and dagger again while this terrorist crap comes smashing right back down on us."
Ran broke the silence that followed. "But if Swann was working for someone, or being used by someone … what does that do to what Crawford gave us? Brad Crawford told us he was being coerced into carrying out a robbery, but could the letter simply have been part of the cover up deal? Why not just tell us he was being forced to commit a murder?"
"Listen Ran," Campbell said quietly, trying to calm down the young man. "Don't let that distract you. You're forgetting who Crawford is, what he did." At the lack of response from the redhead, Campbell rolled his eyes. "Crawford hit maybe five places during a period of three months, mostly empty places, but if someone was there, the man was in and out before a soul knew about it. No knives, no guns. Now knowing this, it is plausible that someone might want to enlist his services to burgle a country mansion, especially if they had inside knowledge that someone as rich as Fischer was going to be staying there. That kind of coercion made sense as to the best of my knowledge Brad Crawford has not committed another robbery since then and was unlikely to be tempted. What doesn't make sense is murder. The fact is, you don't hire a joiner for a burst pipe.
"Now this suicide might suggest there's someone behind all this, but it's irrelevant. No matter what went wrong, no matter what happened in that bedroom on Sunday night, Brad Crawford went in there to rob the place. Why there were four corpses behind him when he left is something we aren't going to find out until we get a chance to talk to him so until we do I suggest you occupy yourself with other matters."
Ran raised an eyebrow. "Like what?"
"The never-ending queue of time-wasters, who this morning include one of our regulars, a Mr McLeod. He can get quite excitable, but I think you'll find the experience a rewarding reminder of keeping your feet on the ground. Good luck."
Ran sighed and turned to leave.
"Oh and Ran? You don't happen to have The Envelope, do you?"
"No. I don't think I've had it since before I left for Edinburgh."
Campbell winced. "Damn. I was just asking on the off-chance it wasn't buried in here. I'll go ask Linda to find it for me, but first I've got a court appointment to get to."
* * *
He had driven around the block a few times, trying to find the car. He knew the make, colour and reg number, but with the central Glasgow one way systems and parking restrictions, it might not even be anywhere near the office. He had found a good spot to wait in that gave a clear view of the entrance and unless there was a back door he could just see Ran when he came out and follow him. He wouldn't intercept him then, but he'd find out where the car was and weigh up the options for later.
He had the home address, courtesy of certain police contacts, but that was a last resort – you never knew who would be watching. Getting in might not too easy either. He could manage it, he was sure, but he had to get in without a trace. If Ran came in and spotted something wasn't right he could freak out or panic before he could get to him which would cause all sorts of inconveniences.
There was a noise from across the road as one of the heavy iron frames was slowly swung open to let in some air. He looked up and felt a start of surprise when he saw the redhead standing by the window. He stood for a moment with one hand on the frame, letting the breeze ruffle those deep red strands before retreating inside. He had the strangest feeling of disbelief that the man could be so unaware that he was being watched. There was something frighteningly intimate about it, and yet the man by the window was completely ignorant of the whole thing.
A man emerged from the entrance to Boyd and Mason, striding purposefully across the street as he vanished into a narrow road that crossed West Regent Street. He re-emerged a few moments later behind the wheel of a blue BMW and vanished into the stream of traffic.
He got out of the car and made his way over to the gap the BMW driver had vanished into and found himself in an underground, permit-holders-only carpark. He entered quietly on the balls of his feet and peered cautiously at the four rows of cars, minus one space for a BMW. He spotted the car he was looking for, and was about to approach, when he saw something that him glad of his stealth.
A pair of trainer clad feet were between the front wheels of the car in question, a red Vauxhall Vectra. There was a dull metallic sound as something weighty was placed on the concrete floor and a scraping sound as another solid steel implement was dragged along the ground before being picked up.
He retreated from the subterranean chamber with additional caution and upon returning to his car looked around for a different vehicle. There it was, a white van hailing from a breakdown garage – the paintwork looking far better than the bodywork. He made a note of the address and phone number before flipping open his mobile phone.
* * *
Ran sat in the traffic jam and idly wondered just why he had never bothered to put the effort into finding an alternative route home from work. He switched on the car radio and abruptly winced as his ears were assaulted with the awful noise that passed as pop music in this country. He adjusted the dial until the talentless drone was replaced with the soothing Scottish accent a newsreader.
"… would be fighting these latest proposals tooth and nail, stating it wasn't for Brussels to impose its own low standards on Great Britain. Detectives in Glasgow are appealing for more witnesses after a man, as yet unnamed until the family are informed, was found stabbed in Partick this afternoon. Witness say two youths were seen running from the scene…"
With an irritable sigh, Ran grabbed a cassette from the overloaded glove compartment and slammed it into the radio. The last thing he wanted to hear was more depressing news. Hearing about violence and death in Glasgow was not helping, especially when he couldn't shake his sense of unease. He smiled as Gomez started to play and turned up the volume.
As he reached the stretch of the Kingston Bridge that passed Scotland Street School, he was finally able to shift gears and put his foot down on the accelerator.
And a couple of hundred yards behind his Vauxhall Vectra, another driver was rather surprised and more than a touch disappointed not to see Ran die in a horrific fireball as his car failed to go out of control and crash into the back of the slowing traffic ahead.
There was a grinding sensation as he turned the key that made Ran suspicious that he might need to get the locks seen to, before it died on him completely and left him locked out. He would have seen about this straight away if it hadn't been for the piece of paper on the floor.
It was several feet away from the door, much further than it could possibly have reached if pushed under the door or through the letterbox. What was more suspicious was that it had been placed exactly central in the corridor. The most telling sign of all this, however, were the words 'READ THIS NOW RAN' that someone had written across the top.
He began reading as he picked it up, his other hand groping for the door, even though he was still undecided as to which side he should be standing on.
'I have written this so as not to alarm you,' it began without any sense of irony, 'and that it won't come as a shock to discover there is an intruder in your flat. Please bear in mind that I mean you no harm and when you feel like venturing into the living room, I hope I will not be met with violence until you have at least heard what I have to say.'
Ran felt his eyes narrow as he began to slowly walk towards the living room. On the way, he stopped to grab a large golf umbrella from the cupboard. It wasn't a katana, but it was better than nothing. He backed up against the wall opposite the open lounge door, so as to gain the maximum perspective afforded from this side of the door. Edging forwards he examined the interior as it slowly came into view. He saw the far end of the hateful fireplace before a hand came into view. Leaning forwards, and not moving any further, he stretched his head and shoulders as a black sleeve also became visible. It led to a shoulder and then to a rolled back balaclava that perched on a blonde head, at which point Ran leaned too far and fell over in a rare absence of grace, landing with a thump as the umbrella rolled away from him.
He quickly rolled onto his bottom and scrambled back against the wall as his intruder loomed before him. Dressed completely in figure-hugging black and a posture that was uncomfortable, impatient and disturbingly familiar. Another step brought his face into the light and confirmed his suspicions.
"Hello Aya," said Yohji Kudou in a voice that was far from amused. "I think we need to talk."
Ran glared at the blonde from his position on the floor. "Well? Talk."
"You wanna move nearer or something? You look like an idiot pressed up against the wall like that."
"I'll move closer when I hear something that interests me," Ran growled.
Yohji glared back through narrowed verdant eyes, then he shrugged. "Fine. Would you be interested to know that someone tried to kill you today?"
Ran swallowed and then climbed to his feet. "That would interest me," he managed. "But just how would you know that?"
"I'm the one that saved you. Feel free to thank me later."
Ran clutched at his head as he felt a headache begin to start. "But how … when … just who is trying to kill me?"
Yohji looked down at the floor. "Someone who's put an awful lot of time and effort into convincing the country that Schwartz killed Johannes Fischer and isn't very pleased about anyone suggesting the contrary."
Ran's knees gave out again and he slid down the wall to the floor. Yohji started to move towards him, but Ran tried to fight him off, pushing and shouting. Yohji overpowered him and clamped a hand over his mouth, pining Ran's arm against the wall with his elbow. "Listen to me," Yohji breathed, his face only a fractions away from Ran's. "I'm sorry, but you're going to have to trust me Aya. You know the drill. You run out into the street, they'll kill you. You phone the police, they'll kill you. You get into your car and leave town; they'll kill you. I'm all you've got right now." He removed his hand from Ran's mouth as the fight went out of the younger man.
"Why are you here anyway?" Ran whispered.
Yohji smiled. "I'm not here because I think Brad Crawford is innocent. I'm here because I know Crawford is innocent."