Janet didn't hang about. The dazed Japanese woman was already recovering, almost on her feet. Janet snatched up a bronze statuette of John Wayne and dived forward. The heavy ornament smashed into the side of Hisako's head with the full weight of the policewoman and the impetus of her dive behind it. The thud as it crunched into Hisako's bald head echoed around the room.
Exhausted by the effort, Janet slumped to the floor and stared at the hideous wound she had opened in Hisako's naked skull.
She let the guards take care of the unconscious woman and eventually went looking for Brasher. She found him crouched over the senator. He looked up.
'Get an ambulance,' he told her. 'The senator's been shot.'
Hisako was proving to be a medical miracle. The wound in her head was healing at a phenomenal rate. It was only four hours since Janet had laid her out, but already the gash had closed and left only a jagged red scar to mark its passing.
The senator hadn't fared so well. He had begun to develop the symptoms that were becoming so well known to Brasher and Janet.
The doctors had no answers to their questions. The best they could come up with was that Hisako's body was basically different; it had become more efficient and, they reluctantly added, improved. The interesting thing about her immune system seemed to be that it was externalized through her lymph glands. This explained the deaths of those unfortunate enough to come into physical contact with her.
Shortly before midnight the senator died an agonizing death, virtually rotting alive. The doctors were having a field day. Already they were calling the disease, which totally destroyed the victim's immune system, the Hisako Syndrome, and vying for the honour of giving it a Latin label. Hisako was locked up in an isolation cell until a secure and germ-free environment could be made available to her at the hospital.
Janet finished reading through her report on the incidents of the day. She felt a certain sympathy towards the captured woman. It must have been terrible for her. All her life she had been kept in an airtight bubble. Treated like a guinea pig. Somehow she had been touched by another human being. Only to see him or her die, rot and shrivel before her eyes. Janet could imagine the rage that welled inside her.
Her records showed that she was way above average intelligence. She spoke several languages and had a score of PhDs. Her intelligence and isolation had fed her mind, but she had no idea about the simple things of life. And it was all down to the bomb the Americans had dropped on her home town.
Somehow Senator Manhelm had become responsible for all her problems and she had set out to destroy him. The rowing club and the others had just been unfortunate to get in her way.
Janet locked the report in her drawer and was preparing to leave when the telephone rang. Hisako had become ill and was asking to see her. Janet hesitated. Although sympathetic, she didn't want to get too close to the captured woman. Then she shrugged. What harm could it do?
When Janet entered the cell she gagged on the smell of putrefaction which even penetrated the surgical mask she was wearing. Hisako was strapped in a strait-jacket, lying on her side facing the wall. Her bald head was already mottled and had developed nauseating, pus-dribbling boils. Hisako rolled over so that she was facing Janet. The policewoman was shocked at the change to the delicate features of the beautiful woman. Hisako's face had blown up into a scarlet pumpkin. Her eyes, which had been so fine and clear a few hours earlier, were now milky cataracts that flickered feverishly. Her perfect mouth a deformed crater of festering ulcers. Slowly Hisako pushed herself to her feet. Effortlessly, she flexed her muscles and the strait-jacket ripped and fell in a heap on the floor.
Janet wanted to call out, alert the guard to what was happening, but she couldn't move.
Hisako limped painfully towards the mesmerized policewoman and reached out her nightmarish hands.
Janet felt her mind slipping away as the ghoulish entity ripped aside her shirt and jacket and gently touched ulcerated lips to her bare breast. As consciousness fled, Janet felt Hisako's feverish breath suck the vitality from her body.
When Janet regained consciousness, Hisako was sitting on the floor by the side of the door. She was still naked, but her skin was as clear and unblemished as it had been defiled and corrupt a few minutes earlier.
Janet knew with a terrible certainty what that meant. She calmed the panic the thought provoked in her mind and looked at Hisako. She was no longer afraid of the woman.
The beautiful killer grabbed the front of Janet's tattered shirt and hauled her to her feet so that she was standing facing the entrance. With the flat of her hand she pounded on the cell door. There was a flutter at the spy-hole, a rattle of the key in the lock and before Janet could shout a warning the door began to open.
Hisako gave Janet a sweet smile as she wrenched open the door. The policeman on guard didn't stand a chance. Hisako's dagger-like hand pierced the wall of his stomach and drove up into his heart. Janet lunged forward but the deranged woman brushed her, almost gently, aside. It was as if she didn't want to harm her. Just leave her to die the horrendous death that was her ultimate legacy.
Brasher was on his way to check out the condition of the prisoner for himself. He heard the scream as Hisako ripped open the PC's body. He was just in time to see Hisako smash through the door that led into the reception area of the station. He ran after her, but by the time he reached the outer office she had overpowered the officers who attempted to restrain her and left by the front door.
A couple of police constables walking towards the building stopped in surprise as the naked woman burst out of the front door. Brasher shouted to them to stop her. There was a ten-foot wall along the side of the road. Without decreasing her speed, Hisako leaped on to a parked car and without apparent effort cleared the obstacle.
Brasher ran to his car. As he began to pull away from the kerb, Janet leaped into the road and stopped him. She jumped into the front passenger seat.
'What happened?' he asked as he accelerated away in the direction taken by Hisako. 'You all right?'
Janet ignored the question and pointed off to the right. 'There she is.'
Hisako had made it to the Embankment and was running along the parapet at a fantastic speed. Brasher tried to cut across the traffic to the opposite side of the road, but the after-theatre rush hour was heavy and he lost valuable seconds before he managed it. By this time Hisako had disappeared.
'Where the hell has she got to?' Brasher demanded.
