'John Craig,' she said, and added hastily, 'it's on your door.'
Then the porter came up with the passkey, and she stood up to leave. She left the mink open and it swirled round her, making her very rich, very desirable. Craig walked with her to the door, shut it, came back, and poured himself a drink.
This one was ahead of Branch. Everything she'd done so far proved it. She'd handled the whole thing with just the right amount of reserve—and of promise. If he'd been a normal man he'd have lain awake all night working out ways of meeting Joanna Benson next day, but he wasn't normal. He'd never be normal again, after what they had done to him. Women were an irrelevance now, or worse. An inconvenience. He looked and acted so male, and they expected him to do something about it. Their instincts were stronger than the squat young man's. They knew he had no time for men. What they didn't understand was that he had no time for anybody, not any more. A woman had betrayed him, and a man had almost destroyed him in one of the most agonizing ways anyone had yet devised. After that, it was better to be on your own, except that on your own life was so lonely and so boring.
He made no attempt to find her, and she left him alone for two days, but on the third she came to call on him again. It was four o'clock in the afternoon and she was dressed in jodhpurs and hacking jacket, and she held her key in her hand. Not one woman in a thousand looks well in jodhpurs. Joanna Benson was the one. The gamine effect was there, as it should be, but she looked invincibly feminine. The best of both worlds.
'I'm not in trouble this time,' she said. 'I came to ask you to dinner. Tomorrow.'
Damn Loomis, he thought, and his postgraduate exercises. And damn this girl who was so sure he would accept because her legs were long and her breasts were rounded. You were only safe on your own. Once you let them get near, hurt inevitably followed.
'I'm afraid I haven't been too well,' said Craig, and hesitated. 'But it's very sweet of you. I'd be delighted.'
They dined with well-drilled friends: a rising young barrister and his wife, whom Joanna had been at school with. The wife, Rosemary, had obviously been carefully briefed by Joanna. They were there simply as window dressing, and behaved accordingly. Craig was the target, the victim. There could be no doubt that Rosemary approved. She did everything but wink at Joanna from the moment Craig entered the room. The husband, too, was impressed, and left it to Craig to pour the drinks, test the temperature of the wine. Joanne had no talent for cookery, and said so at once. The food had been ordered and was excellent. The wine she had attended to herself. It was superb, as was the brandy that followed. Joanna wore a short evening dress of black chiffon and looked very lovely, and, after the brandy, very slightly drunk. At midnight, the barrister remembered the baby sitter, and Craig, too, got up to leave. He felt no surprise when he did not succeed. This time Rosemary all but winked at him.
Joanna poured more brandy and Craig realized that she was nervous as well as drunk, but she moved well even so, the short skirt swirling round her long, beautiful legs . . . And how, Craig wondered, do we get back to my flat? Why don't we just stay here, or are we saving my place for next time? Joanna moved about, stacking dishes and glasses, and as she moved she talked, about how lovely London was at this time of year, and how Regent's Park was the loveliest thing in London.
'To see it by moonlight,' Joanna said. 'It really excites me.
'There's a moon tonight,' said Craig.
'But we can't see the park from here.'
'We can from my flat,' said Craig.
'So we can,' said Joanna. 'Darling, would you mind?'
Craig didn't mind, and Joanna loaded glasses and cups on a tray, Craig carried the coffeepot and brandy bottle, and they moved with exaggerated stealth to his door, went quickly inside. The 'darling' was a fact now, the business of carrying the coffee and brandy a small intimacy, a game for lovers. Craig switched off the lights and pulled the curtains wide. Below them the park was a vast silver-point, elegant yet shadowed. Joanna sighed.
'I know it's trite,' she said, 'but it makes me think of Hermia and Helena and that ridiculous mixup in the wood. Don't you think so, darling?'
'I think it's beautiful,' said Craig. And dangerous. Those pools of shadow are always dangerous.
The girl made a slight, inevitable movement, and she was in his arms. Her lips on his, the touch of her lightly clad body, were meaningless to him, but he returned her kiss with a simulated passion that the strength of his arms underlined. She gasped as he held her.
'You're very strong,' she said. Her body wriggled as she spoke. He sensed her fingers unhook, ungrip, and the black chiffon drifted downwards like a black cloud. She wore fashionably little beneath it. Mechanically his hands stroked the cool softness of her back, but his mouth could kiss no more.
'Don't you like me?' asked the girl.
Craig said, 'I'm sorry. I'm afraid I don't feel very-'
He allowed himself to sway on his feet. She grabbed him. It took all her strength to get him to a chair, but at last she did so, and he collapsed into it, and she looked down at him. In the moonlight, it was hard to read her face.
'Pills,' Craig whispered. 'In my pocket.'
He fell back, and at once she took his wrist, felt for his pulse, but the benzedrine he had taken took care of that. It was racing. For a long moment she looked at him, then drew the curtains together and switched on the lights; Craig made no move. She put on her dress and began systematically to search the flat.
Craig let her look for three minutes. She was quick, methodical, and sure, and wary always of him lying in the chair. She held her handbag with her, too, wherever she went ... In time, this one would be deadly. At last she found it necessary to get his keys. They were in his right-hand trouser pocket, and she had to move him. She came up to him, wary as a cat, but he lay quite motionless. Reluctantly she put down her handbag, grasped his shoulders, and heaved. He was too heavy for her. She swore, and heaved again, and this time he came up in a quick surge of power, and one splayed hand pushed under her chin, one held her right arm away from her bag. Joanna found that movement, any movement, brought instant agony. She stayed still.
'You did very well,' said Craig. 'Very well indeed. But you should have checked to see where my pills were first ... I haven't got any.' The hand under her throat moved, brought her to her knees. He let her numbed arm go, reached for her bag, took out the little Biretta automatic. 'And you should have kept hold of this,' he said. 'All the time. It was the only chance you had.'
Andrew Royce made no attempt to reach him at all. No dinner invitations, no call to read the gas meter or chat in a bar. Instead, Royce studied the outside of Craig's flat, then worked in the gym every day, and with one of the experts who had visited the school. The expert's field was burglary, and he was a master. Loomis observed his plans and said nothing to Craig. Royce's choice of methods was his own.
He chose a night when Craig went to bed early. Patiently he waited for the lights in the flat to die, then climbed, steady, not hurrying, his body protected by shadow from the dying moon. He found the window of the spare bedroom and felt for burglar alarms. There were none. No wires, no photoelectric cells. The tools the expert had taught him to use worked admirably, and the window catch yielded to him in minutes. Cautiously then, he greased the side of the window, let it slide open, and was inside. Once in, he pulled a mask over his face and moved silently to the door of Craig's bedroom. Royce had considered the problem of the sleeper from the beginning. Loomis had impressed on him how important the document was. Inevitably, it would be hidden. That meant either a long search or forcing Craig into telling him where it was. In either case Craig would have to be put out of action first. Royce looked at the cold chisel he'd used on the window, then dropped it into his pocket. The chisel was dangerous: he might hit too hard. For a job like this it was better to use the hands.
An accident saved Craig. As Royce opened the bedroom door and eased, slowly, noiselessly round it, the phone rang. Craig woke up at once and Royce saw him stir. He leaped for Craig, and his hand, held like an ax blade, struck down with controlled force. (On no account must the man be killed, Loomis had said.) But Craig had flung the covers aside already and the blow was smothered in bedclothes. Royce followed it up with his fist, and the punch caught Craig on the side of the neck, the impact an immediate eruption of pain. Craig groaned, fell back, and Royce leaped for him, but Craig's fall became a spin that took him out of the bed and on to the floor. He scrambled to his feet and the pain stabbed at him, slowing him so that Royce too had time to roll free.
Royce was younger and faster than Craig, and he had not been hit. He was wide awake, and Craig had been asleep. He leaped in again, anxious to get it over, but Craig swayed away from the three-finger strike he aimed at him, and countered with a chop that smashed just below his ribs. Royce groaned and lashed out with a karate kick aimed at the groin. Again Craig swayed, and the shoe scored along the edge of his thigh, but his hand smacked
