He swung hard, the kind of punch that would have knocked my head from my shoulders had it landed. I made sure it didn’t, allowing myself to roll backwards across the bed. I didn’t fancy my chances in any kind of fair fight. He hadn’t been in jail lately so he was fitter than I was and had a two stone advantage in weight.
He scrambled across the bed, trying to get at me, got caught up in the sheets and fell on his face. I kicked him in the head which didn’t accomplish much as I was bare-footed, but it shook him for a moment and by the time he was on his feet I had the Smith and Wesson in my hand.
‘By God, I’ll have you now, Wyatt.’
He plunged forward and I shot the lobe off his left ear. He screamed like a woman and his hand went to the side of his head as blood spurted. He stared at me in horror and then the door burst open and Legrande appeared. A second later, he was pulled out of the way and Burke entered, the Browning in his hand.
He got between us fast, I’ll say that for him. ‘For God’s sake, what’s going on here?’
‘You’d better get your bloody lover boy out of it if you want to keep him in one piece,’ I said. ‘This time I only nicked him. I’d be just as happy to make it two in the belly and he can take his own sweet time about dying.’
A good ninety per cent of my anger was stimulated and I even allowed my gun hand to shake a little. The total effect on Burke was remarkable. The skin tightened across the cheekbones, something stirred in his eyes and for a moment, hate looked out at me. I think it was then, at that precise moment, that I knew we were finally finished. That whatever had been be-tween us was dust and ashes.
He allowed the Browning to drop to his side, turned and took Piet by the arm. ‘Better let me have a look at that for you.’
They left without a word. Legrande hesitated and said slowly, ‘Look, Stacey, maybe we should have words.’
I’d never seen him look so troubled. ‘Go on, get out of it,’ I said. ‘I’m sick to death of the lot of you.’
I gave him a shove into the corridor and slammed the door. I had a hard job keeping my laughter down. So now it was Stacey the wild man? Let them sort that out.
It was only later, alone in the silence, that I dis-covered that my hand really had begun, to shake. I threw the Smith and Wesson on to the bed and dressed quickly.
I’d hung on to the keys of the Fiat and when I went down to the courtyard it was still there. As I climbed behind the wheel Legrande arrived and opened the other door.
‘I’ve got to talk to you, Stacey. I don’t know which way I’m pointing.’
I shook my head. ‘You wouldn’t be welcome where I’m going.’
‘As far as the village then. There’s a cafe there. We could have a drink.’
‘Suit yourself, but I can’t give you long.’
He scrambled in and I drove away. He lit one of his eternal Gauloise and sat back, an expression of settled gloom on his hard, peasant face. He looked more like a Basque than anything else, which wasn’t surprising as he came from a village just over the border from Andorra. He was a close man, one of the most efficient killers I have ever known, but not, I think, by instinct. He was not a cruel man by nature and I had seen him carry a child through twenty miles of the worst country in the Congo rather than leave it to die. He was a product of his time more than anything. A member of the Resist-ance during the war, he had killed his first man at the age of fourteen. Later had come the years of bloody conflict in the swamps of Indo-China, the humiliation of Dien Bien Phu followed by a Viet prison camp.