The Follower by Patrick Quentin

Reforma.
    Then …
    Down in the ring the matador seemed to have hypnotized the bull. It stood with solid patience, its head lowered, in front of the man who loomed on tiptoe over it, his raised sword pointed ominously downward at the animal’s neck. The huge arena was caught up in a charmed silence. Suddenly the sword swooped. It disappeared in the bull’s thick neck. The bull staggered. Its tongue lolled out. An enormous blast of roared applause swept through the auditorium like a gale. Blood spilled out of the animal’s throat. It gave a kind of hissing cough and collapsed on to its side in the sand.
    Clappings, screams, cheers bellowed around Mark. He turned to look at the girl next to him. The businessman type had jumped up and was applauding heartily. He glanced down jocularly at the girl.
    ‘Well, well, what do you think of that?’
    ‘It’s making a bouillon cube the hard way,’ said the girl.
    Her escort laughed his good-natured, foolish bray.
    ‘Ah you!’ he said archly. ‘You little cynic, you, Mrs Liddon!’
    The girl was very serene. With a casual glance at Mark, she pulled the red handbag around on to her lap, fumbled in it and brought out a compact. Frowning slightly at the compact mirror, she started to remake the scarlet arcs of her lips.
    There was something haunting about that young face with the disenchanted blue eyes and the delicate, almost gaunt cheekbones. But Mark wasn’t looking at her as a woman; he was looking at her as a potential enemy.
    Because he was almost sure of it now. There was no other explanation.
    This girl was impersonating his wife.

10
    BERIBBONED mules dragged away the dead bull. The Matador strutted around the arena to cheering, the stomping of feet and the waving of white handkerchiefs. The businessman type sat down. The girl lit another cigarette. The roar of the crowd subsided to a murmur and then rose again to a buzzing of anticipation as a second bull charged clumsily into the ring.
    He glanced sidewise at the girl. Her head was half-turned from him as she listened with unenthusiastic politeness to her escort’s lecture on bullfighting. To have this happen on top of everything else seemed more than any man should have to bear. Mark fought against his growing sense of frustration. This was another crisis and he could only meet it by keeping calm.
    ‘Keep calm,’ he said to himself as he had said when he found Corey’s body in the apartment. The charm worked once more. He felt much steadier. Okay. This girl next to him was impersonating Ellie. Why? Almost immediately an explanation occurred to him. It was far-fetched, but it fitted with Ellie. If she was frightened enough of Victor, she might have thought that escape to Mexico was not enough. She might have persuaded or bribed this girl to take over her public identity while she went into hiding. It would have been a muddled idea because, presumably, anyone Victor sent after her would know what she looked like. But Ellie — particularly Ellie frightened — wasn’t any Quiz Kid.
    Until he knew more facts that would do as a premise. He glanced again at the girl. Whether she was an ally or an enemy of Ellie’s, she was obviously the key. He would not let her out of his sight until he had tricked, cajoled, frightened, or forced out of her whatever it was she knew.
    He sat pretending an interest in the ring, straining his ears to hear every word exchanged by the girl and the man with her. For so bizarre a situation the conversation was almost incredibly banal. From the man’s heavy politeness and his constant use of the formal ‘Mrs Liddon’ Mark was sure that they were only slight acquaintances. He gathered from a few stray remarks that the man’s name was Riley and that his business was in Mexico, but his guide-book dissertation on the sights of the city proved that the girl had only recently come from the States. The man was not making passes at her, but there was a certain courtliness in his behavior, as if