A window opened down the alley.
‘Whos’at? What’s goin’ on?’ a voice called out.
Tony ducked into the shadows and stared back up the nameless street. A door opened near the end of the street, a shaft of yellow light cut through the darkness.
Tony turned back toward the empty house and then his heart froze. Something grabbed his ankle. He turned, and the colonel had one hand around his ankle and his good eye was glaring up at the youth with hate, and his other hand was clawing at his holster. Blood splashed on Tony’s pants leg. The colonel tried to say something, to scream, but all that came out was a bloody gurgle.
Tony tried to pull away. He dragged the colonel a few feet toward the vacant house, but the officer had Tony’s leg in a death grip. He started to release the pistol from its holster. Tony held the pistol an inch from the man’s forehead and fired again. Floodwell’s forehead exploded. Bits of skull and blood peppered Tony’s face. The colonel rolled over and lay on his back gagging, then a rattle started deep in his throat.
Tony bolted into the doorway of the house, wrapped the gun in its oilcloth packet and stuffed the gun down under his books. He took out his handkerchief and wiped his bloody face as he ran back to the basement steps. He heard footsteps on the street above and he kept running and wiping the blood off his face. When he reached the back door lie stopped. He stuffed the kerchief down with the gun and stepped cautiously into the dark street. It was empty. He walked quickly to other side, where the shadows were deeper and started toward the sentry post. He could see the two troopers inside the small blockhouse in the middle of the road. The street was open. The barbed-wire gate was pulled back on the sidewalk. The two troopers seemed to be working on the radio. He could hear its static as he drew closer.
There was only blood on one of his pants legs. That was a help.
He stayed in the shadows, walking very slowly, his eyes on the two Tans standing near the check booth.
‘I’m tellin’ ya, Striker, it was shots,’ one of them said, ‘at least the second one was.’
‘Awr, ya hear shots in yer sleep, Finch,’ the one called Striker said.
Tony walked toward the two troopers who were silhouetted by the lights in the booth. In the future, he thought walking in the darkness toward them, he would try to think of everything that could go wrong. He would have more than one plan.
Tony reached the barbed-wire gate that had been pulled back on the sidewalk. The two troopers had not seen him, they were busy trying to tune in their radio, but all they were getting was static.
He held his leg against the barbed—wire fence and pushed until he felt one of the steel knots dig through his pants and into his leg. He pulled up and the barb tore deep into his flesh. He screamed.
The trooper called Striker flashed his torch in Tony’s face.
‘Help me, please! I’ve hurt m’self,’ he called out.
‘Jesus Christ!’ Striker cried and rushed over to Tony.
‘You got yerself a bad cut there, son,’ he said, watching blood pumping through Tony’s torn -pants. ‘Dintcha see that wire?’
‘I was in a hurry. Played soccer too long, y’know. I’m really in for it now. Late for dinner and me pants is ruined. My uncle’ll take the strap to me for sure.’
Ere, Finch, get out the kit. Our soccer champ, ‘ere, has got hisself wounded on our wire.’
Finch was hitting the radio with his fist, trying to clear the static. ‘Wonder what the hell’s goin’ on up ‘ere?’ he said. He looked at Tony’s leg. ‘Christ, son, you really tore yourself up, now, dintcha. Hold still a minute, I got some iodine and a bandage in the first aid. Din’ ‘at sound like gunshots to you, Striker?’
‘I was fuckin’ with the radio, Finch, I really didn’t hear it,’ he said. ‘Hang on, son, this’ll have a bite in it.’ He bathed the ragged tear in Tony’s foot with iodine and bandaged it.
The phone in the booth rang and Finch picked it up. ‘Whas’at
whas’at? Jesus, is he a goner? No, there ain’t been a living soul down ‘ere for half an hour. . . just a school kid we know, cut his leg on the wire. . . Rightch’are. We’ll close her off now, but it’s been quiet as a bleedin’ church mouse down ‘ere.’ He hung up. ‘You ain’t gonna believe this, Striker. Somebody just blew the colonel’s head off. Not two blocks from ‘ere, up on The Bluff. We got to close up the street. I told yez I ‘eard shots.’
Tony squinched up his face and forced out some tears. ‘Owww,’ he moaned.
‘How far do ya live?’ Finch asked.
‘Just two roads down, on Mulflower.’
‘Kin ya walk on ‘at?’
‘I think so.’ He tried it. The cut burned but he could stand on it. ‘I can make it okay. Thank ye, for yer help.’
‘Watch yer step, lad. Ther’ s trouble afoot t’night. Get off the street ‘s fast as yer can.’
‘Yes, sir,’ and he limped off into the darkness as Striker and Finch began to move the barbed-wire gate across the road.
By the time Tony was eighteen and had finished high school and had won himself a scholarship to Oxford, he had learned his profession well. To carry the pistol to England would have been foolhardy. Besides, Falmouth wasn’t angry anymore. When he killed Floodwell, all Tony could remember was that getting even felt good, but as time went on, getting even became less and less important. Revenge turned to exhilaration. Now the simple act of killing made him feel good, the same way that a forward feels good when he makes a goal. It was what he did and he did it without remorse or feeling and he did it very well indeed. And he did it alone.
The day before he left, he rode his bike out to Land’s End and threw the Webley as far out into the ocean as he could. It had served its purpose. In four years, Tony had killed nine people. Two had been British, the rest were informers. Only one of them was a woman.
