the hall. There was no bleep of an alarm waiting for a PIN to be entered.
The house smelt as if its owner had emptied every boutique in Noordermarkt of its lemon-scented candles. I flicked on the deadlock. If someone did come back, they wouldn’t be able to get in. They’d give it a few goes, thinking the lock was jammed, and that would give me enough time to exit from the front.
I let my jaw drop open, so all the internal noises like breathing and swallowing didn’t intrude. I did nothing but listen for a minute or two. The house was completely silent. There wasn’t even the tick of a clock. All I could hear was the dull rumble of the Westerstraat traffic.
I cocked my head and listened again. I wanted to make sure no one was reacting. I’d opened a door. Even when people are asleep, their eardrums can be sensitive to minute changes in air pressure. Grannies call it sixth sense, but more likely it was caveman-survival stuff. You needed a little advance warning if a brontosaurus was coming to visit.
I waited a few seconds longer. There was still no creak of a floorboard, no sound from a radio or TV.
As my eyes adjusted, I began to make out the streamlined cabinets to my left and right. The walls were white. Rugs covered the polished wood floor all the way to the front door. A small bowl that contained change but no keys was perched on top of a glass cabinet. The two men’s winter coats hung on a rack above it. There were no handbags, purses, patterned umbrellas or a copy of the Dutch version of
I focused on the shape of the front door at the end of the hallway. Somewhere down there would be the staircase to the upper floors, but I wasn’t going to use it. I wasn’t going to check the rest of the house. There was no need. Everything I was interested in was downstairs. I wouldn’t be long down there, with luck no more than ten minutes. All I had to do was study the windows and door, and work out which of them I was going to leave unlocked for when I came back.
I put down the toolbox and mallet and took off my trainers. The floor would show any grit or dirt in this show-home, and anyone as fastidious as its occupants would notice. I would also check my socks weren’t leaving sweat marks. If they did, I’d give them a wipe when I did my clean-up recce on the way out.
I tied the laces together, put the trainers over my left shoulder, and picked up the little black box and the mallet. There were two doors to my right. One of them had to lead to the basement stairs.
I was reaching for the handle of the first when it opened and light flooded into the hallway.
24
The guy had greasy black hair that reached the collar of his black shirt. His sleeves were rolled up. There was a mug in his hand.
He spotted me and his jaw hardened. With not so much as a shout, he hurled the mug. It missed me but the hot stuff in it didn’t.
I lunged for him, but I was too slow. He was gone, legging it back into the room he’d come out of.
I followed him, crashing past leather sofas and a table. On the table sat an empty plate and a small kitchen knife. He grabbed it. He had a weapon. He turned back towards me. His face was stone.
I spun and tried to dodge the stab but he was too fast. I felt a punch to my buttock. At first there was no pain at all. A split second later, there was a dull throbbing at the site. Then a burning sensation permeated outwards and turned into intense pain. My leg buckled under me. As I crashed to the floor, I vomited. A trainer smashed into the top of my head. A pissed-off voice screamed down at me in a language I didn’t understand.
He kicked out at me again and I jerked back my head. My face slid in my own puke. I brought my arms up to protect my head. The top of my right leg felt like there was a blowtorch playing on it.
He yelled something, either to me or to someone else in the house.
I brought my knees up to protect myself, trying to get into some kind of foetal position, but the pain in my leg prevented me. I had to jerk my right leg out to keep it straight, and curl up the left one as best I could. I got a kick to the stomach for my trouble. Thank fuck they were trainers not boots, but it still hurt. I was going down here.
My left eye was blurred. I tried to wipe it on the side of my arm. He walked around me and kicked me in the back. I took a deep breath. I felt his hands and knees pushing against my back, then his hands digging into my pockets. He dragged the cash out of the front of the jeans and I knew I’d never see it again. I hoped he’d count it - anything to give me some time to recover.
The pressure left my back. I watched as the trainers moved round to face me. He carried on to the door, and closed it to contain us both. The next thing I heard was the bleep of numbers being punched into a mobile phone. He was breathing like a porn star, but when he spoke, his voice was calm.
There was a pause.
I opened my eyes. The tattoos running up his forearms were tribal. They looked like the Pizza Express logo, and were very dark and new. He closed down and the phone went back into his pocket. He walked past me and disappeared to the other side of the room. Then he came back over and I sensed rather than saw him reach out. Pain shot through me. I realized the knife was still sticking into me, and he was sawing it backwards and forwards.
He leant down and shouted words I didn’t understand. He played with the knife some more. All I could do was take the pain.
I gritted my teeth as the knife came out. My right buttock was on fire.
He screamed it down into me, jamming it back in.
He had to push a cushion over my face to muffle my yells.
25
The cushion came off and the kicks rained in.
I curled up. I flexed my leg even though I could feel the blade still stuck in my buttock.
There was nothing I could do. Sometimes you’ve got to accept you’re in the shit and ride it out. He wasn’t going to kill me. He was waiting for someone. I was still in with a chance.
The kicking continued until he finally lost his breath and beads of sweat poured down his face. Then there was silence. I heard window blinds being opened and closed, and the slam of vehicle doors outside. Black Shirt grunted something as he fought for breath. For all I knew he was talking to himself.
The back door rattled. Not once but twice. That was supposed to be my signal to leg it out the front. Black Shirt took a long, hard look at me and decided I wasn’t going anywhere fast. He whipped along the corridor and did the business with the latch.
I heard another voice, deeper, stronger. He didn’t like what he found. He started yelling. A pair of legs edged around the vomit. I saw immaculate jeans over smart brown brogues.
My arms were still protecting my face. The blue rubber gloves were covered with vomit. I lifted my elbow. He, too, had black hair and a dark complexion. He had his hands in the pockets of a short camel-hair coat. He bowed from the waist to try and get some perspective on my face. I smelt a mixture of cologne and cigars.
He straightened up and turned to Black Shirt. His hands swung between me and the pool of sick.
Black Shirt hung his head. It looked like Brogues was his boss, and he’d let him down badly. And, going by the concern on his face, Brogues didn’t dish out that many second chances.
Brogues shouted as hard as he pointed. My body screamed at me in pain, but the longer his rant, the longer I had to recover.
Black Shirt muttered something and tossed him the container of Smarties.
Brogues threw up both his hands. It clattered to the floor. He didn’t want his prints on it. He leant down to me and shouted a question in my ear. I moaned and groaned as if I was out of it on drugs. I wished right now that I was. At least it would dull the pain.
