threw my whole upper body forward, and swung back. The hardest part of my head smashed like a club into his face. There was a shocked scream, and I dropped loose on to the floor.
You really have just moments in this sort of fighting. I knew that I had to be up on my feet and reaching for any weapon at hand. But I rolled, gasping and shaking, on the floor. I couldn’t see past the white flashes still bursting in front of my eyes. Except for the wild thudding of my own heart, I was effectively deaf. I fought desperately to pull myself together. I got hold of the noose that was still about my neck and tore it free. I threw it behind me. As I heaved myself slowly on to hands and knees, I felt my walking stick where it had fallen. I grabbed it, and, wheezing and shuddering, pulled myself to my feet.
I leaned on my desk for support and looked round. At first, I thought I’d chased the attacker off. But, no – he was on the far side of the room. He wasn’t a big man, but was young and wiry. Leaning with one hand against the wall, he was doubled over. I’d got him hard on the nose, and he was too busy with blood and tears to come after me. I looked round for a weapon. The penknife was useless. Still holding on to the desk with my left hand, I raised the stick in my right. Watching it tremble and shake as I held it before me would have been comical if I hadn’t been in so much danger. I opened my mouth and tried to call for support. But, if my windpipe hadn’t been crushed by that first tug of the noose, nothing came out but a rattled croak.
The killer was now upright again. He had no knife in his hands, and didn’t seem to have come out with any other weapon beside his noose. He too was looking about for a weapon. Like me, he didn’t find much ready to hand.
‘Christ is my Saviour,’ he called in a low, triumphant Syriac. ‘My Saviour is Christ.’ There was no chance of seeing his eyes. Even so, I had the impression that he was high on the usual hashish. He smiled and went into a wrestler’s pose. He moved slowly towards me. I swung round with my stick and began rapping it hard on the desk. I hit out at my cup, and, with a loud noise, it shattered on the floor. I clutched harder at the desk and held the stick out as if it had been a sword.
‘Help!’ I was now able to gasp in the feeble voice of the very old. ‘Help – murder!’ I jabbed uncertainly at him with my stick as the killer came forward again, and pulled it back before he could take hold of it. I used the advantage as he jumped out of my way to snatch up the inkwell. I threw it at his head. I missed, and it smashed on the floor, leaving a pool of blackness under his feet.
Perhaps the penknife might be some use after all, I thought. Unlike with the oarsman, I had no advantage of surprise, and this wasn’t the murderous little instrument that Joseph had given me. But I might be able to get in a lucky cut before those strong outstretched arms got to me and closed too tight round me. The killer saw what I had in mind. He put his arms into a semblance of the praying position.
‘Christ is my Saviour!’ he cried, now exultant. ‘My Saviour is Christ!’ He stepped towards me across the office. In just that one step, he’d covered half the distance that separated us. He stopped and giggled, and spun round and round, his arms trailing outward beside him. ‘Christ is my Saviour! My Saviour is Christ! Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. Christ is my Saviour! My Saviour is Christ!’
His little sermon over, he took another step towards me. I tested the weight of my stick and held it up before me. I held it as if it had been half sword, half truncheon. It was neither, and neither would have been much good in these trembling hands. I told myself not to whimper, and stood up straight.
As I looked, now steady, into his eyes, and thought I could see only death reflected back at me, the door of the office flew open. Standing in the doorway, stark naked, was Edward.
Chapter 37
Edward was silently taking in what he’d seen. His hair was untied, and it floated about him in the lamplight like a golden haze. The killer turned to face him. He laughed again and moved towards the door.
‘An old man,’ he grated, still in Syriac, ‘and a boy to guard him!’
Edward’s response was a mouthful of obscenities in English, and then a lunge forward into the room. He set about the killer with the sort of cane you use for beating uppity slaves. Surprised, the man retreated at first, protecting his face with outstretched arms. He kicked another chair over, and it looked for a moment as if he might pull an entire book rack down on himself. But, if not very big, he was twice Edward’s size and weight. Surprise is everything when dealing with a superior opponent, and Edward had worn his out too fast to make it count.
The killer reached out and snatched the cane. He took it clean out of Edward’s hands, almost as if he’d been taking a rattle from an annoying child. He held it in both hands and put his head back for a low, chilling laugh.
‘I am sent to kill an old man,’ he called, speaking a sort of Greek, ‘and now a boy as well!’ He laughed again, and went on the attack. He slashed out at Edward and caught him about the shoulders. He beat out again and again. It was a cruel and thoroughly experienced beating. I heard the continual hiss of thin wood and its impact on bare flesh. Edward dodged behind the fallen chair and tried to push it towards the killer. It was too heavy. He succeeded only in exposing himself to more of those terrible blows. Once more, the killer laughed. He looked at me. I was still propped, useless, against the desk. He shouted loud in a burst of wild, drug-inspired pleasure, and turned his full attention on the boy.
Not once, under that beating, did Edward cry out. He held up his arms for protection. He did his best to shield his face. But, all the time, he lunged at the killer, trying to land a blow – hoping perhaps to regain possession of the cane. I watched until the killer turned and began driving Edward towards the office door. It was now that I went into action. I stepped forward and got him from behind with a blow of my own, much heavier stick. I missed his head, but got him a hard blow on the collarbone. There was a howl of pain, and he wheeled round to face me. I stabbed at his throat, and got him on the cheek. I raised the stick and swung hard. I felt the impact as I hit his left wrist. He howled again and made a grab for the stick.
Edward was on his feet again. He jumped on to the man’s back and tried to pull him down to the floor. He was too light. But the man was clutching with his good hand at the hold on his neck. He pitched forward and back, and from side to side. I heard the thud of the boy’s thigh against one of the book racks. But there was no breaking his grip. Edward tried to get his fingers up the man’s nose and to pull. He scratched at the eyes. He ignored the still punishing backward slashes of the cane. I moved in closer with a hard jab into the genitals, and then another poke in the face. Using the stick in place of a stabbing sword, I went at every soft part of the body I could reach, concentrating on face and stomach. All the time, Edward stayed clamped on his back, pulling and shoving. I cursed my weakness and the hard thumping in my chest that almost seemed to knock me off what little balance I had. But I got the genitals again. This time, I must have got one of his balls. With a loud shriek of pain, he lunged backwards. Edward managed to swing himself sideways just in time to avoid being caught under the killer as he hit the floor. I took my stick in both hands and threw myself forward, landing with my stick across the lower part of his throat. I pushed hard.
There was a time when I’d have crushed his windpipe as if it were a foot of leather hose, and got up to watch him choke. But I’d lost both weight and strength over the years, and I might as well have been pressing against solid bone. The man was dazed from the fall backwards, and I was on top of him. But the killing blow I’d had in mind was out of the question. So I raised the stick again. Still gripping it in both hands, I turned it vertical and brought it down hard. I missed his right eye, and carved a gash two inches long under his hairline. He squealed, and I felt his arms come up from behind to flutter about my throat. I held the stick aloft once more and struck with more precision. This time, its half inch went straight in. It grated against the socket, and there was a momentary pressure on the softness of the eye. Then, it crunched into the bone at the base of the socket.
The screams were deafening. As if I’d thrown him on to those burning coals beside Saint Flatularis, the killer went into a frenzy. He curled into a ball. He clutched at his eyes, trying to pull the stick out of his ruined socket. The merest touch increased the agony, and he stretched out on his belly – as if trying to find some resting position in which the pain might at least stabilise. There was none. Sounding barely human, he howled. He beat frantically on the tiled floor. Again and again, he smashed both knuckles down until the bones must have broken. But there was nothing to relieve that all-devouring pain. And, surely beside the physical pain, must have been the horrified realisation of what I’d done to him. He curled into a ball again. He straightened out and arched his back, and screamed till his breath failed him. He clutched at his beard with both hands and pulled. He threw his arms wide and let out another long, bubbling scream.
But, still, he wasn’t finished. With an angry roar that seemed to fill the room, he heaved himself to a sitting
