Dave grabbed hold of my shoulder and yanked me over onto my back. “Oh no, I want to see the look on your face, bitch,” he said quietly, his voice twisted and breathless.
I looked up numbly, my expression blank. It was his eyes that were the most frightening, wild with the excitement of what he was doing.
I struggled to a sitting position on the edge of the stage, using only my right arm to push myself upright, my broken left dangling uselessly by my side. I slowly pulled my feet back so they were under my knees to give me balance. Dave stood over me, breathing heavily, the rod lowered in front of him now he had me beaten.
Afterwards, I couldn't explain how I came to the decision. I didn't do it consciously, which scares me. The opportunity presented itself and I took it instinctively, that's all. I didn't hesitate for a second, didn't agonise over the moral rights and wrongs, didn't stop to consider the consequences. Dave had dropped his guard and I took advantage of it to hit him as hard as I could.
Yelling from the base of my screaming lungs, I burst suddenly upright, ramming my feet into the floor to lift my body off the stage as my arm straightened.
I hit Dave just under the tip of his nose with the heel of my open hand, but I was aiming for a spot about eight inches further on. It was a deadly punch to throw, and I was fully aware of the fact. I put everything I had left into it, every scrap and ounce of energy. The forfeit for failure was an ugly, prolonged, and vicious death.
It didn't fail. The force and the angle of the blow caused Dave's nasal bone to shatter just at the bridge of his nose, between his eyes, as I'd prayed it would. The sheered end was driven onwards and upwards, slicing deep into the frontal lobe of his brain.
According to the police pathologist, he was dead before his body finished falling.
He splayed backwards, landing hard on the dance floor, head cracking hollowly against the polished wooden surface. His body continued to jitter, trying to evade the creeping paralysis that slowly enveloped it as his heart finally gave up the fight.
It took a while for him to stop twitching. The lifeless fingers relaxed. The mic stand rolled out onto the floor, rocked a little, and lay still. It was only then I could bear to look.
There was a dribble of saliva stringing from the corner of his slack mouth. His eyes were still open in his flattened, distorted face, frozen with the momentary surprise that had been his final expression, right in the instant before I killed him.
For a while I was too exhausted to move. I don't know how long I sat there, shivering. It seemed an age. Finally, I dragged myself shakily to my feet, edging round Dave's sprawled corpse, and swayed drunkenly over to Clare.
At first I thought she was unconscious, but when I touched her shoulder she jolted like I'd stung her. She looked up, her pupils pin-point dots in her unfocused eyes.
“Charlie?” she murmured, her voice thready. “You're all covered in blood.”
“I know,” I croaked. I reached up tentatively to my throbbing neck, suddenly realising that I could still breathe and talk. My fingers touched ragged ends of flesh and I dropped them away. If it wasn't that bad, I didn't need to worry about it, and if it was, I didn't want to know.
Besides, my left arm and my face were yelling at me through the central nervous system equivalent of a megaphone. I felt light-headed, and freezing cold. I couldn't stop my teeth clattering together like a flamenco dancers' convention. In a detached way I registered that my body was shutting down, going in to shock. I knew if I didn't do something soon, I was in big trouble.
One-handed, I couldn't manage to undo the zip-ties round Clare's wrists and had to give up trying. “I'll get help,” I muttered.
It seemed a hell of a long way across the dance floor to the bar, where the nearest phone was, but I managed to get there by sheer bloody determination.
I had to dial the number of the police station three times before I got it right, and when they answered I asked them to put me straight through to MacMillan. There was only a short pause before he came on the line.
“Superintendent, it's Charlie Fox,” I said, my voice wavering.
“Charlie! What the hell do you think you're up to?” he demanded.
“Angelo didn't kill Susie and Joy,” I told him, launching straight in without preamble. “It was Dave Clemmens and I missed it, all along. He raped and killed them, and he's just tried to kill me.”
“Charlie, listen to me. Stay right where you are.” His voice became terse, persuasive. “I'll send a car to pick you up straight away. I give you my word that you'll be quite safe.”
“OK,” I said meekly, “I'm at the New Adelphi Club.” He relayed the information to someone alongside him. I suddenly felt unutterably tired. I slid to the floor, cradling the phone with my good hand. When he spoke again I said, “There's no need to rush – the bastard's dead.”
Epilogue
In the end I didn't go to trial for the murder of Dave Clemmens. They didn't even charge me with his manslaughter, which was a bit of a surprise really, considering the technique I'd used. I suppose if I'd waited until later and stabbed him to death with a pair of pinking shears, they would have sent me down for life.
Ironically perhaps, the only charges I did face were for assaulting a police officer. I think WPC Wilks's ego had been more bruised than her jaw. They let me off with a caution, though. MacMillan delivered my stern lecture himself, with only the barest hint of a smile.
The thing I regret most about this whole business is the effect it's had on my friends. Physically, Clare emerged from the encounter relatively unscathed, but the road back from the mental trauma she'd suffered looked like being a long and tortuous one.
Any attempts I made to offer comfort seemed to make things worse. Eventually I just had to leave her be and hope that, when she'd recovered enough to view things with a clearer perspective, she didn't hold me entirely responsible for what had happened.
It's bad enough that I blame myself.
Ailsa sent me a short little note telling me she didn't feel it was appropriate for me to continue my classes at the Lodge. She was divorcing Tris on the grounds of gross mental cruelty and, with the facts as they were, I doubted there was a judge this side of senility who wouldn't come down heavily in her favour. She had already announced her intention of selling the house to a local property developer and moving the refuge to somewhere on the north Wales coast.
I had a feeling Tris would mourn the loss of his family home more than the disintegration of his marriage, but I don't know for sure how he took the news. He never contacted me again.
The police picked up Angelo a couple of days after the raid on the New Adelphi. He'd gone to ground with an old mate of his from Liverpool. I couldn't ignore the possibility that the man was probably one of the pair who'd ransacked my flat, but there wasn't the evidence to pursue it. There was enough forensic to bind Angelo to Terry's killing, though, and that was the main thing.
When it came to Dave, after reviewing all the facts, the powers that be decided my claim of self-defence was justified. They judged that I didn't have a case to answer, and I walked away free. The police were able to lay the three recent attacks firmly at Dave's feet without question. It looked like I'd done everyone a favour.
But that doesn't make it any easier to forget.
The doctors at the hospital told me I'd been lucky, that wrenching my head away had caused the knife blade to slice into the side of my neck rather than across my throat, missing by fractions the trachea and vital arteries, which had slid back behind my neck muscles. They stitched me up again and set and plastered my arm. The ribs and the cheekbone, so they told me, were best left to sort themselves out, given time.
They sent me to see a community psychiatric nurse for counselling about coming to terms with what I'd done, but I have a feeling the bones will be mended long before my conscience.
Like I said, the worst part is knowing that, if I was ever in the same situation, I'd do exactly the same thing again. No doubt about it.
It doesn't sit well with me, that – the realisation that I have not only the knowledge, but the instinct to kill. It sets you apart from the other people you pass in the street, makes you feel alone, less human than they are.
I proved Dave wrong, though. Given a straight fight between a man and a woman, neither with any particular
