staining the white door of the fridge as she lay against it.
As he lunged for her once more she flung open the fridge door and rammed it against his legs, struggling to get to her feet.
Carr snarled angrily and almost fell but he recovered in time to see her pull a long serrated blade from the knife rack on the wall nearby. She turned on him, the vicious blade glinting wickedly. He did not hesitate, he grabbed for her, his hands aimed at her throat but Suzanne struck out with the knife.
The combined force of his momentum and her own upward thrust was devastating.
The blade punctured the palm of Carr’s right hand and erupted from the back, sawing through several small bones as it did so. Blood burst from the wound and Suzanne tore the knife free, nearly severing his thumb as she did so. He roared in pain and held up the mutilated limb almost as an accusation, watching the tendons and muscles beneath the skin moving frantically. It felt as if his arm were on fire but, despite the severity of the wound. Carr did not hold back. He reached for a chair and lifted it above his head, bringing it down with bone-crushing force across Suzanne’s outstretched arm.
The knife was knocked from her grasp and she fell backwards, blood now flowing more freely from the rent in her scalp.
Carr grinned maniacally and struck again.
So violent was the impact this time that the chair broke as he brought it down across her face and upper body. Her bottom lip exploded, her nose merely collapsed as the bones in it were obliterated. In one fleeting second, Suzanne’s face was a bloody ruin.
Carr dropped to his knees, one hand groping for the discarded knife. He gripped it in his gashed hand, ignoring his own pain as he took hold of a hunk of Suzanne’s hair and lifted her head.
She tried to scream but her bottom jaw had been splintered and the only sound she could make was a liquid gurgle.
Carr pressed the knife to her forehead, just below the hairline, using all his strength as he moved the serrated blade quickly back and forth, shearing through the flesh of her scalp. He slid it in expertly towards her ear, slicing off the top of the fleshy protruberance as he did so and, all the time, her body jerked violently as waves of pain tore through her.
The knife grated against bone as he sawed madly at her head, tugging on her hair as he did so until finally, with a loud grunt, he tore most of it free.
Like some bloodied wig, the hair came away in his hand, most of the scalp still attached.
Suzanne lay still.
Carr staggered upright, the grisly trophy held before him.
There was loud banging from the direction of the front door, growing louder by the second.
Carr closed his eyes tightly, suddenly aware of an unbearable pain in his right hand. The entire limb was going numb, he could hardly lift it. He staggered back, seeking support against the sink and, gradually, a vision plucked raw and bloody from a nightmare swam before him. Only he wasn’t dreaming.
He looked down in horrified disbelief at the scalped body of Suzanne Peters, almost shouting aloud as he recognized the matted mass of hair and flesh which he held. He dropped it hurriedly.
‘No,’ he murmured, quietly. ‘Oh God, no.’ His voice began to crack and he edged away from the girl as if she were somehow going to disappear. He continued to shake his head, not able to comprehend what had happened. Or how.
The banging on the front door intensified but all Roger Carr was aware of was the agonising pain in his hand, the stench of blood which hung in the air like an invisible pall.
And the icy chill which had wrapped itself around him like a frozen shroud.
The restaurant was small, what the owners liked to refer to as intimate. But, due to the number of people crowded into it, the place looked more like a gigantic rugby scrum. Not at all intimate, thought David Blake as the waiter led him through the melee towards the appropriate table.
Amidst the sea of lunchtime faces, the writer spotted Phillip Campbell immediately.
The Scot was sitting near to the window, sipping a glass of red wine and poring over a thick pile of A4 sheets, scribbling pencilled notes on the pages every so often. He was dressed in a light grey suit which seemed to match the colour of his hair. A red rose adorned his button-hole as it did on every occasion that Blake saw him. He wondered, at times, if Campbell was propagating the flowers in the breast pocket of his jacket. As each new one came up. Snip. Into the button hole.
He looked up as Blake reached the table, rising to shake hands with the writer.
They exchanged pleasanties and the younger man sat down, loosening his tie as he did so. The waiter scuttled over and placed a large glass before him.
‘Thank you,’ said Blake, looking rather surprised.
‘Vodka and lemonade,’ Campbell told him, smiling. ‘You haven’t started drinking something else have you?’
The writer chuckled, shook his head and took a sip from the glass.
‘I make a point of knowing all my author’s requirements,’ the Scot said, raising his glass. ‘Cheers.’
Both men drank. The waiter arrived with the menus and left them to decide.
‘What do you think of the completed manuscript now that you’ve read it?’ Blake asked, indicating the A4 sheets.
‘You’re no closer, David,’ Campbell toid him. ‘I’m still not convinced about half the things you claim in here.’ He tapped the pile of typewritten pages.
The writer was about to speak when the waiter returned. The two men ordered and he hurried off through the throng to fetch their first course.
“It’s too muddled,’ Campbell continued. ‘You don’t name any sources for some of the theories you’ve put forward, especially the ones to do with Astra!
projection. Control of the Astral body.1
‘I met a girl at the Institute of Psychical Study,’ Blake said. ‘She’s conducted laboratory tests into this kind of thing.’
‘Then why isn’t she named as a source?’
“Her superior is keeping a pretty tight rein on the research they’re doing. I don’t think he’d be too pleased if her findings turned up in my book.’
‘How well do you know this girl’?’
‘We’re pretty close,’ Blake told him.
Campbell nodded.
‘The Astral body can be activated by artificial stimulus like drugs or hypnosis, she told me.’
‘Then use her name for Christ’s sake,’ snapped Campbell. ‘Can’t you speak to her superior about this information? Maybe he’ll release some details.’
The waiter returned with the first course and the two men began eating.
i can’t use her name or her findings and that’s final,’ Blake told him.
‘Then you’ve still got nothing concrete and until you have, this manuscript is no good,’ said Campbell, pushing a forkful of food into his mouth.
‘I take it that means you’re not ready to negotiate a contract?’ Blake said.
Campbell nodded.
Blake smiled humourlessly.
‘You could do with a demonstration, Phil,’ he said.
The Scot took a sip of his wine.
‘That I could,’ he smiled. ‘See if you can arrange it, eh?’
Blake chuckled. Behind the tinted screens of his dark glasses his eyes twinkled.
Gerald Braddock reached forward and wound up the window of the Granada. It was warm inside the car but he decided that the heat was preferable to the noxious fumes belching from so many exhaust pipes. The streets of London seemed even more clogged with traffic than usual. High above, in the cloudless sky, the sun blazed away mercilessly.
