Suddenly, all the air was ripped out of my lungs as freezing cold water landed across my face and chest. I must have inhaled half a cupful, because I instantly started heaving and coughing, doubled over. I opened my eyes then, but could see nothing for wet hair plastered over them.
Blinded and gasping, I spent what seemed like an interminable age fighting for breath, but it can only have been half a minute or so. When they deemed I'd had enough time to recover, a hand grabbed hold of my hair and yanked my head back.
The sight that faced me then was of two men. Big, thickset, purposeful-looking men, wearing gloves and ski masks. The one who had hold of me had a cigarette poking out through the mouth hole of the fabric covering his face. The other still clutched one of my saucepans, which was what he'd used to tip a couple of pints of cold water over me. Hadn't these guys ever heard of smelling salts?
The ski masks both terrified and reassured me. If whoever had sent these men wanted me dead, they wouldn't have bothered hiding their faces. If, on the other hand, whoever it was wanted me severely done over, I was going to be lucky to come out of this with my kneecaps intact.
This was not a situation where looking strong was going to have any benefits. I let my face crumple, let my fear show. It didn't take much acting ability on my part.
“Please!” I whimpered. “Don't hurt me!” I reached up to clutch at the wrist of the hand that was still buried in my hair. My fingers located three useable pressure points, but I hesitated from drilling deep in to them. Not yet, Fox, not quite yet . . .
Even through the ski mask, I could see the twist of disgust on the smoker's face. He gripped harder and wrenched me off the sofa onto the floor. If I hadn't been taking my own weight by holding on to him, he would have torn my hair out by the roots. I gave a squeal of shock that I didn't really have to feign.
“Shut the fuck up!” he roared. He slapped me across the face, making my eyes water. I slumped at the base of the sofa, my left cheek on fire. I couldn't work out which side of my head hurt worse.
I don't know what they'd hit me with to start off with, but blood from the hole it had made was still running into my right eye, making me blink.
“What do you want?” I sobbed.
The Scouser moved in then. He grasped the back of my neck to jerk my head up, and pushed a flat square object under my nose, about the size of a telephone directory. I recognised the lap-top computer Terry had given me. Oh shit.
“See this?” he demanded.
I tried to nod, but the steely fingers digging into my neck gave me a very short range of movement. He shook me viciously. Like he was training a stupid dog that continually stayed when it should have sat, and rolled over when it should have come to heel.
“Wrong!” he snarled as he rattled me. “You don't see it. In fact, you've never seen it. You don't even know it exists, right?”
“O-OK,” I mumbled. He threw me back on the floor with a grunt of contempt.
“She don't sound too sure,” the smoker observed dispassionately. He sucked on his cigarette until the end glowed red. “She might do something stupid when we've gone, like call the filth. I think we might have to be a bit more persuasive, eh?”
A cold fear gripped me then. Unless I did something drastic, and real soon, I was going to get a pasting. Sadly, it seemed that my assailants had overcome their initial squeamishness over gender. Now I was afraid they were going to go overboard to compensate.
For the first time I noticed the state of the rest of the flat. It had been comprehensively and professionally trashed. My books had been pulled from the shelves and littered over the floor, my TV set had the tube put through. Even the sofa had its stuffing protruding from a dozen slashes in the fabric.
My heart-rate kicked up into overdrive. I hadn't seen a weapon, but one of them had to be carrying. Or possibly both of them. I had no way of telling. But if I went for one bloke and the other pulled a knife on me, I was going to be in more than deep trouble.
I was going to be dead.
I took a full breath. I told myself that I'd taught plenty of class scenarios covering attacks by two players. I wasn't kidding myself that it was easy, but I knew I could do it.
Don't think. Just act.
In the event, it was the smoker who acted first. He strolled over to me as though he was out for his Sunday constitutional and punched me hard in the sternum, putting his bodyweight behind the blow.
I rolled away, gulping for breath, ending up at the furthest edge of the sofa. He advanced, smirking, with his hands clenched by his sides, and making no attempt to keep his guard up.
Still making a play of looking terrified, I managed to slide onto my knees. We'd moved ten feet or so away from the Scouser, and there was an overturned chair between us. The odds were lousy, but they were probably as good as they were going to get. When the smoker was towering over me again, I went for it.
His kneecaps were about on eye-level. Blocking out the pain in my ribs, I drew back and hit the one nearest to me. The heel of my open hand landed just under the patella itself, slanting upwards. I closed my mind to the wet crunch his knee made, like a big dog chewing through chicken bones.
He staggered back, bellowing. I reinforced the damage by smashing the point of my elbow into his thigh, dead-legging him. He went down like a knackered lift.
Unfortunately, the Scouser's reactions were faster than I'd hoped. He leapt over the fallen chair like an Olympic hopeful. By the time he landed, a wicked-looking hunting knife with a six-inch blade had magicked into his hand. Sheer rage boiled out of the holes in his ski mask, fuelled by the smoker's screamed instructions that he should kill the bitch.
The Scouser did his best to comply, cornering me by the balcony. We were in full view of the opening, silhouetted against the lights.
A brief thought flashed into my head that if a bored passenger on a bus happened to glance across the river, they could suddenly find themselves in the middle of a Hitchcockian nightmare.
I had no time to expand on that theme, mentally or otherwise. The Scouser launched a blistering attack of swipes and slashes, but he'd let his anger contaminate his judgement. He was getting wild, leaving himself more and more open. I paused momentarily. Timing was everything.
Then he thrust the knife at me once more. I dodged and it slid past my side with inches to spare. I locked my fingers round the wrist of his knife hand. Control the weapon, and you're halfway to winning the fight.
Using my own forward momentum to tip him off balance, I swept his legs out from under him and dropped him heavily onto the floor. I went forwards onto one knee with him as he went down, keeping hold of the knife hand. I now had his elbow straightened out nicely over my bent leg and I levered it hard, clawing my fingers into his wrist. Drop the knife, damn it!
He was a big tough bloke, but it's difficult to keep your mind on stabbing somebody when your elbow feels ready to explode. For a bit of extra persuasion I jabbed a knuckle into the hollow just below his ear. The combination was enough. His fingers went suddenly nerveless and the knife clattered onto the floor.
“Good boy!” I said tightly, and hit him with my clenched fist on the side of his neck. I don't know why I chose that target. It was exposed, and I took the opportunity. Striking the muscles there makes the throat contract and can leave you fighting for breath. If nothing else it's painful and worrying, but I knew at best I'd gained only a few seconds of escape time.
By this time the smoker had crawled to his feet and was hobbling forwards, looking malevolent. He was between me and the front door. I just had time to scoop up the fallen knife and fling it out over the balcony, praying there were no passing pedestrians below at the time.