That’s a bit cheeky, I thought. That was usually my game plan.
I dodged and he caught me only a glancing blow on my shoulder. I shoved him and sent him spinning across the hall on his knees. He was quickly back up on his feet and bunching for a fresh attack. I dropped the internal telephone and retreated into the kitchen and tried to close the door.
He stuck his foot in the gap and pushed hard. I leaned on the door to keep him out but he had the strength of the demented, as well as two good hands.
I looked around for a weapon. I had a pocket full of bullets but no gun. Too late to discover that I could have gladly shot him dead.
There was a pine block full of kitchen knives on the work-top on the far side of the room near the cooker but it would have meant leaving the door to reach them. Did I have a choice, I asked myself. I was slowly losing the battle to keep him out anyway.
Again, I asked myself the question. Even if I reached a knife, would I use it? I had once known a particularly nasty villain who had told me that killing with a knife was an experience not to be missed. He had described with relish how he liked to feel the warmth of his victim’s blood on his hand as it spurted out from the wound. It was an image I had often tried to remove from my consciousness without much success. Could I stab Peter and feel the warmth of his blood?
He heaved at the door and sent me sprawling across the floor.
I jumped up and went for the knife block.
He tore at my collar and tossed me away from it. He stretched for it himself. I grabbed at him and put my right arm round his neck and pulled him backwards.
But I was losing this fight. Hand-to-hand combat is somewhat tricky when your opponent has twice as many hands and no scruples about using his nails and teeth as well.
He dug his nails into my already sore wrist and used the still-dangling handcuffs to pull my hand up to his mouth where he bit it. But I refused to let go and went on hauling him away from the knives. He bit me again, this time using all his might to sink his teeth into my thumb. I thought he would bite it off completely.
I gave up my neck-lock, and tore my hand free of him.
He went for the knives.
I picked up the only thing I could see. My trusted one-handed cork remover. The spike sat ready for action on a shelf next to the wine glasses.
I tried to stab it into his back but I couldn’t get it through his coat.
He chose a long wide carving knife from the block and turned around. I knew the edge was sharp. I had honed it myself.
So it was to be my blood warming his hands.
He was still smiling the evil grin and if anything his lips were even further back than before. There was something horrific about what such hate can do to a human being.
He stepped forward and I stepped back. In two strides I was flat against the wall.
As he lunged at me, I stabbed him with the cork remover. I drove the spike deep into the soft tissue between the thumb and first finger of his right hand.
He screamed and dropped the knife. The spike had gone right through. The sharp point was clearly visible sticking out of his palm. He clutched at it.
I pushed past him. The front door to my left was no good, it was locked and the key was in Peter’s pocket. I went right and fairly sprinted down the hallway to the bathroom. I locked myself in.
A moment later, I could hear him walking about.
‘Sid,’ he said. He sounded quite calm and also very close. ‘I have my gun back now and I’m going to come in there and kill you.’
Not if I could help it.
Where were the bloody police?
I heard the gun go click. Then click again, and again.
‘Oh, very funny,’ he said.
I hoped to God he hadn’t brought more ammunition with him.
‘Well, Sid, what shall we do now?’ he said through the door. ‘Perhaps I’ll wait here until your girlfriend comes home. Then you’ll come out.’
I wasn’t sure whether it dawned on me or Peter first that Marina was not coming home.
I had been in the bathroom for well over an hour. I wasn’t coming out and Peter hadn’t been able to get in. He’d tried a few times. At first, he had attempted to kick the door down. I had leaned against it and I could feel the blows through the wood. Thankfully, the corridor outside was so narrow that he couldn’t get a run at it and the lock had held easily. Next, he had tried to hack his way through with the carving knife. I know because he’d told me so, but wood doesn’t cut very easily with a knife, even a sharp knife, and I reckoned it would take him all night to get through that way. I was glad I didn’t have a fire axe in the flat.
The phone had rung several times. I could hear my new answering machine picking up each time after seven rings, just as I’d told it to.
I’d worked out that the police must be somewhere outside and it was probably them on the phone. They must surely have stopped Marina from coming back. By now they must have also intercepted the real Charles Rowland.
I wondered how long they would wait.
A long time. They would have no desire to walk in on a loaded gun.
The phone rang again.
‘Answer the phone, Peter,’ I called to him through the door.
There was no sound. He had been quiet for a long time now.
‘Peter,’ I shouted, ‘answer the bloody phone.’
But the machine did it for him, again.
I wished I had my mobile. It was on its charging cradle in the sitting room and I had heard it ringing, too.
I sat on the edge of the bath in darkness. The light switch was outside in the corridor and Peter had turned it out long ago. The only light came from the narrow gap under the door. I had several times lain down and tried to look under, but without much success. Occasionally I had seen a shadow as Peter had walked past or stood outside the door. But not for a while now.
What was he doing?
Was he still there?
I stood up and put my ear to the door. Nothing.
The floor was wet. I could feel it on my right foot, the one without the sock.
What was he up to?
Was he pouring something flammable under the door? Was he going to burn me out?
I went down quickly on my knees and put a finger in the liquid. I put it to my nose. It didn’t smell of petrol. I tasted it.
I knew that taste. When one was accustomed to eating grass at half a mile a minute it was seemingly always mixed with blood from one’s mouth or nose. And blood is what I could taste now. I found I was paddling in the stuff and it was coming under the door. It had to be Peter’s but the wound I had inflicted on his hand would not have produced so much.
Gingerly I opened the bathroom door and peered out. Peter was seated on the floor a little to the left, leaning up against the magnolia-painted wall.
His eyes swivelled round and looked at me.
I was surprised he was still conscious. His blood was all down the wooden-floored corridor and there were splashes of it on the paintwork where surges of it had landed.
He had used the carving knife with its finely honed edge.
He had sliced through his left wrist so deeply I could see the bones. I had seen something like that before.
I stepped towards him and used my foot to pull the knife away, just to be on the safe side.
He was trying to say something.
I went down and put my ear close to his mouth. His voice was so weak I could barely hear him.
‘Go back in the bathroom,’ he whispered. ‘Let me die.’
EPILOGUE
Three weeks later Marina and I went to Huw Walker’s funeral outside a rainy Brecon.
The service took place in a small grey stone chapel with a grey slate roof, and every seat was filled. Evan Walker was there in a starched white shirt and stiff collar under his best Sunday suit. Chief Inspector Carlisle represented the police and Edward, the managing director, was there on behalf of Cheltenham Racecourse.