replaced it with one of those gas things with fake coals.
But at least I had one advantage over my assailant in so far as I could see him much more easily than he could see me.
It was still quite light outside, and I watched him through the windows as he went right around the house. At one point he came close to the kitchen window, cupping his hands around his face and up against the glass in order to peer in. I made sure I was standing to the side of the window, in a dark corner where he would have had no chance of spotting me.
Perhaps he would go away, I thought.
He didn’t.
The sound of breaking glass put paid to any hope I may have had that this was going to end simply and without violence.
My mother’s windows were old, in keeping with the age of her cottage. They were a version of the old leaded lights, small panes of glass held together by a lattice framework of metal strips.
The gunman had broken just one of the little panes in one of the kitchen windows, but it was enough for him to put his gloved hand through the opening and unlatch the whole thing. I watched him do it in the fading light, and the window swung open outwards.
Where could I hide?
Without doubt the best place to be was in the bathroom upstairs with the door locked but I had no intention of joining Claudia and my mother there. I was sure that that would lead in the end to the deaths of all three of us.
So, where else was there to hide?
Nowhere.
I concluded that hiding was, in fact, my least-favored option. It would simply give the advantage to the gunman, who could take his time, all night if necessary, and eventually he would undoubtedly find me and then I too would get a couple of bullets in my heart and another in my face just as poor Herb had.
So if I wasn’t going to hide, and I certainly wasn’t going to merely stand and wait to be killed, the only other option was to attack, and attack hard and fast.
He started to climb through the window, his gun with its long black silencer entering first.
I stood just to the side of the window and raised the umbrella, holding it by the pointed end so that I could swing the heavy wooden handle.
I used all my strength and brought the handle down hard onto the gun. I had actually been aiming for his wrist, but he pulled it back a fraction just at the last second.
The gun went off, the bullet ricocheting off the granite worktop below the window with a loud zing before burying itself in the wall opposite. But the blow had also knocked the gun from the man’s grasp. It clattered to the floor, sliding across the stonequarry tiles and out of sight under my mother’s old fridge. That evened things up a bit, I thought, but I would have loved to have been able to grab the gun and turn it on its owner.
I didn’t know what he meant, and it sadly didn’t stop him coming through the window.
I raised the umbrella for another strike, but he was wise to me now and he grabbed it as it descended and tore it from my grasp, tossing it aside as he stepped right through the open window and crouched on the worktop.
I rushed at him, but he was ready, pushing me aside with ease, so that I stumbled across the kitchen towards the sink.
I turned quickly, but the man had already jumped down to the floor. I watched him as he looked around and then withdrew a large carving knife from the wooden block next to my mother’s stove. Now, why hadn’t I thought of that?
I moved quickly to my right, putting the dining table between him and me. If he couldn’t reach me, he couldn’t stab me either.
There followed a sort of ballet, with him moving one way or the other and me mirroring him, always keeping the table between us. Once we ran around and around the table three or four times, with me watching carefully for him to change direction. He pulled out chairs to try to slow me down, but I was quick. I may not be as fit as I was as a jockey but I was still no slouch in the running department. It had fared me well in Lichfield Grove and was doing so again here.
But for how long?
He only needed to get lucky once.
He changed his tactics, using one of the chairs to climb up onto the table, and then he came straight at me across it.
I turned and ran for the stairs, pulling open the latch door and bounding up the steps two or three at a time. I could hear him behind me, and he was gaining.
Where could I go? I was running out of options.
Panic began to rise in my throat. I didn’t want to die.
I turned to face him. At least I would see it coming and I’d be able to make some effort to get away from the thrust of the knife.
He stood at the top of the stairs with me just four feet away in front of him. He advanced a step, and I retreated a step, then we both repeated the drill, but my back was now up against the wall. I had no farther to go.
He came a step closer to me, and I readied myself for his strike, although what I would do when it came I didn’t know.
Die, probably.
Claudia stepped out of the bathroom, just down the corridor to his right.
“Fuck off, you bastard,” she shouted at him with full fortissimo. “Leave him alone.” She then slammed the bathroom door shut again and locked it.
He turned momentarily towards the noise and I leapt at him, wrapping my right arm around his neck with my forearm across his throat while at the same time trying to gouge his eyes out with the fingers of my left hand.
I squeezed his neck with all my strength.
But it was not enough.
The man was considerably taller and stronger than I, and in spite of my best grip he simply began to turn himself around to face me. And with both of my arms held up around his head, my abdomen would be totally defenseless to a thrust of the knife.
What had that spinal specialist told me?
“Whatever you do,” he’d said, “don’t get into a fight.”
He’d said nothing about falling down stairs.
I hung on to the man’s neck as if my life depended on it, which it probably did, and then I dived headfirst down the narrow boxed-in stairway, taking the man down with me. It was a crazy thing to do, especially for someone who had precious little holding his head to his body. But it was my only chance.
I twisted as we fell so that I landed on top of the man, his head taking the full force of the heavy contact with the wall where the stairway turned ninety degrees halfway down. We slithered on to the bottom of the wooden stairs, coming to a halt still locked together by my right arm, which I was still pulling as tightly as I could around his neck. We were lying partially through the leverlatch doorway, our legs still on the stairs, our heads and torsos sticking out into the room beyond.
Even for me on top, and using the man’s body to break my fall, the first impact with the wall had been enough to drive the air from my lungs, but at least my head hadn’t fallen off.
I pulled my arm from under his neck and jumped to my feet, ready to continue the fight, but there was no need. The man lay limply, facedown, where he’d come to rest.
I went quickly to fetch my mother’s collapsible walking stick and then I used it to retrieve the gun from beneath her fridge, hooking it out with the handle.
If the man moved so much as an eyebrow, I thought, I’d shoot him.
I stood over him for what felt like a very long time, pointing the gun at his head and watching for any movement.
But the man didn’t move. Not even to breathe.
