on the bed. He knows he’s in good shape, but sucks his gut in a little anyway. He’s stiff as a beer-pump himself now. Damn, he’ll make her bells ring, little Shari’s bells ring. Oh Christ, but if she calls out ... what if Khan hears? He’s a pretty light sleeper, what if he bursts in while he’s lying here all trussed ...
Bells ... make her bells ring ...
How come she hasn’t set off the alarm system?
He’s forming the question when he hears tape being torn, and next thing her hand is over his face, wrapping tape around his mouth, around the back of his head, mouth again, and again, and again. Jesus fucking Christ! He grunts, struggles. But then he hears a cli-chick, and another, and another, and another. Four. And he’s not being held by ties any more. Something cold instead. And then the light goes on.
It takes his eyes a second or two to deal with the difference. He sees himself naked, and the handcuffs around his ankles. They’re around his wrists too, pinning him to the bedposts top and bottom. No problem. He can contract himself and snap the god-damned bedposts off if he has to. Idiot that he was in the first place. Khan’ll kill him for this. But who is the woman? The woman dressed in black, who’s standing there at the foot of the bed. He hasn’t been able to focus on her yet, but now she’s stepping forwards and
Thwockl
One blow to the right temple with her hammer, and it’s back to the barmaids for Henrik. Witch looks down on him and smiles. Well, what’s the point of working if you can’t have a little fun?
Across the corridor and down the hall, two people are asleep in a large rumpled bed. The whole room smells of perfume and bath-soap and sex. Their clothes are distributed across the floor without any discernible pattern or progress. The man is naked and lies on his side without any covering. The woman lies on her front, hair tangled across the pillow. She is covered by a white sheet, and her left arm hangs limply down from the edge of the bed, fingernails grazing the carpet. No fun and games here. Now the work begins in earnest. The arm is actually a bonus, lying bulging-veined like that. She uses the pencil-thin torch to help her prepare and test the syringe, which she then jabs home into one of Shari Capri’s veins, just where the forearm meets the elbow. Not merely asleep now but unconscious. An explosion wouldn’t wake her. Gunshots would cause no flickering of her eyelids. She’ll wake up in the morning, gluey-mouthed, thirsty, with a sore head most probably.
These will be the least of her problems.
Now only Khan remains. He seems to be sleeping peacefully. She wonders what he’s dreaming of. What do you dream of when you have everything? You dream of more. Or else the terror of losing everything you’ve got. Either would be appropriate, considering what is about to happen, and why it’s about to happen. Witch squats on the floor, her face in line with Khan’s. She’s not six feet from him - not quite close enough for him to take a waking, desperate lunge at her, but close enough so that she can study him. And studying him, he becomes less human to her, and less human still. He becomes a motive, a deal, a set of crooked figures on an accounting sheet. He becomes her pay-off.
‘Mr Khan,’ she says softly. ‘Mr Khan.’ An eye opens to a slit. Her voice is as casual as any nurse’s would be to the patient who’s come out of the operating theatre. ‘Time to wake up now, Mr Khan.’
The difference being, of course, that now Khan is awake, the operating theatre waits for him. Witch, smiling, already has the good sharp knife in her hand. It flashes through her mind that she has been in Britain exactly a week.
Happy anniversary.
The Protean Self
Monday 8 June
‘So how was France then?’ Greenleaf was smiling. Some might have called it a grimace.
Doyle smiled too: with pleasure. ‘Mag-ni-fique, John. Just mag-ni-fique. Here ...’ He reached into a
Bells ... make her bells ring ...
How come she hasn’t set off the alarm system?
He’s forming the question when he hears tape being torn, and next thing her hand is over his face, wrapping tape around his mouth, around the back of his head, mouth again, and again, and again. Jesus fucking Christ! He grunts, struggles. But then he hears a cli-chick, and another, and another, and another. Four. And he’s not being held by ties any more. Something cold instead. And then the light goes on.
It takes his eyes a second or two to deal with the difference. He sees himself naked, and the handcuffs around his ankles. They’re around his wrists too, pinning him to the bedposts top and bottom. No problem. He can contract himself and snap the god-damned bedposts off if he has to. Idiot that he was in the first place. Khan’ll kill him for this. But who is the woman? The woman dressed in black, who’s standing there at the foot of the bed. He hasn’t been able to focus on her yet, but now she’s stepping forwards and
Thwockl
One blow to the right temple with her hammer, and it’s back to the barmaids for Henrik. Witch looks down on him and smiles. Well, what’s the point of working if you can’t have a little fun?
Across the corridor and down the hall, two people are asleep in a large rumpled bed. The whole room smells of perfume and bath-soap and sex. Their clothes are distributed across the floor without any discernible pattern or progress. The man is naked and lies on his side without any covering. The woman lies on her front, hair tangled across the pillow. She is covered by a white sheet, and her left arm hangs limply down from the edge of the bed, fingernails grazing the carpet. No fun and games here. Now the work begins in earnest. The arm is actually a bonus, lying bulging-veined like that. She uses the pencil-thin torch to help her prepare and test the syringe, which she then jabs home into one of Shari Capri’s veins, just where the forearm meets the elbow. Not merely asleep now but unconscious. An explosion wouldn’t wake her. Gunshots would cause no flickering of her eyelids. She’ll wake up in the morning, gluey-mouthed, thirsty, with a sore head most probably.
These will be the least of her problems.
Now only Khan remains. He seems to be sleeping peacefully. She wonders what he’s dreaming of. What do you dream of when you have everything? You dream of more. Or else the terror of losing everything you’ve got. Either would be appropriate, considering what is about to happen, and why it’s about to happen. Witch squats on the floor, her face in line with Khan’s. She’s not six feet from him - not quite close enough for him to take a waking, desperate lunge at her, but close enough so that she can study him. And studying him, he becomes less human to her, and less human still. He becomes a motive, a deal, a set of crooked figures on an accounting sheet. He becomes her pay-off.
‘Mr Khan,’ she says softly. ‘Mr Khan.’ An eye opens to a slit. Her voice is as casual as any nurse’s would be to the patient who’s come out of the operating theatre. ‘Time to wake up now, Mr Khan.’
The difference being, of course, that now Khan is awake, the operating theatre waits for him. Witch, smiling, already has the good sharp knife in her hand. It flashes through her mind that she has been in Britain exactly a week.
Happy anniversary.
The Protean Self
Monday 8 June
‘So how was France then?’ Greenleaf was smiling. Some might have called it a grimace.
Doyle smiled too: with pleasure. ‘Mag-ni-fique, John. Just mag-ni-fique. Here ...’ He reached into a
Similar Books
