Patrick let the curtain fall. For half a minute he stood by the window, forcing himself to be calm. Ruth was still asleep, her heavy breathing plainly audible to him across the room. Moving quietly in the darkness, he found his trousers and the thick sweater he had been wearing the day before. His shoes were beside the bed.
Downstairs, he paused in the kitchen. A row of gleaming, wooden-handled Sabatier knives hung on a magnetic rack. He selected one with a six-inch blade and slipped it into his belt. It was razor-sharp: he knew, because he had honed the entire set three days earlier.
The back door led into the garden, but he knew better than to go that way. There might be more than one watcher, and the odds were that a second man, if any, would be at the rear of the house.
A side window gave onto the drive. He unlocked the dead-bolt and opened it without a sound. A blast of cold air took him unawares. The wind was rising. There was a roll of thunder, very far away, moving behind unseen clouds. The storm was coming.
He dropped to the ground, poised against possible attack. Here, beside the house, the darkness was complete. Clouds came up fast, obscuring the stars. He crouched, listening. Beneath the pounding of his heart, he heard cold waves turning on the shore. Above him, branches shifted. His skin felt taut and nervous. In spite of the cold, he was sweating.
Crossing the gravel of the drive took an eternity. Then grass, then the fence dividing him from the next house. A frosted lawn led down to a low wall on the other side of which lay the road. From here he could still see the street lamp, but there was no sign of the watcher. Automatically, he checked the knife: the other man would carry a gun, he was sure of that.
Though he knew the darkness hid him, he felt utterly exposed as he sprinted across the road. On the other side, he vaulted the sea wall onto the path that wound along the beach. The tide was well in now, a heavy swell pushed by rising winds. The thunder sounded again, nearer this time, a low, animal growl threatening violence.
He kept to the sand, crouching low. The waves covered any sound. The man was still standing where Patrick had last seen him, in the shadows just beyond the lamp. His back was to the sea. He moved restlessly, trying to keep warm. About six foot, Patrick reckoned, and well built. There would be a car nearby, perhaps another man waiting in it.
Patrick removed his shoes. It was bitterly cold, but he had to be sure of silence. He slipped behind the wall, then over, never letting his eyes wander from his target. The frost felt like daggers on his bare skin. With his right hand he slipped the knife from his belt. Thunder like stones in the sky. Darkness closing in. The sea tormented, moving landward from the night.
He was behind the man now. Without a sound, he set his shoes down. Faint as gossamer, his breath hung in front of his face, trembling. He braced himself and reached with both hands at once. His left grabbed a clump of hair, pulling the man’s head back fiercely, while the right brought the knife round hard against his throat. He could feel the blade touch flesh, the Adam’s apple neat on steel.
‘Kneel.’
The old voice out of the darkness; his own voice, and yet not his voice.
The man grunted, about to scream, his throat bulging unseen against the blade. Then, slowly, his legs buckled and he lowered himself to his knees. Patrick moved hard behind him, a knee in his back, the knife well poised, the long throat taut. He could feel the stranger’s fear, acrid in the sea air, in the electric presence of the storm.
‘Take your gun and throw it to the ground. Please don’t force me to hurt you.’
The man struggled for words.
‘No ... gun ... I ... swear.’
‘Who are you?’
Silence. The wind moving, cold as death.
‘Who sent you?’
The knife again, a trickle of blood, frost on the blade. Silence. Death hovering breathless in the thin air. The man’s fear was rapidly giving way to something else: Defiance? Indifference? Transcendence?
‘Why are you watching me?’
Silence. Then a roll of thunder that echoed across the bay.
He switched to Arabic.
‘Min ayna ta’ti? Where are you from?’
No sign of comprehension.
He tried Persian.
‘Az koja amadi?
No answer.
Suddenly lightning flashed, turning the world to light for an instant. An image fixed itself in Patrick’s mind: a dark-haired man, his head held back, a knife against his throat, a thin line of blood across bruised flesh.
Patrick blinked, and in that instant the stranger made his move. His right hand came up, grabbing Patrick’s wrist, knocking the knife away. He swung in sideways, his hair twisting painfully in his captor’s grasp, his left arm pivoting, his fist striking out hard. Patrick rocked, loosening his grip. The man staggered with him, then dropped forward, using his head to butt Patrick, knocking him down. At that very moment, the storm broke. Like a river bursting through a dam, rain came flooding out of the sky, thick and cold and heavy.
Patrick heard the man’s feet ring out on the hard ground. He rolled onto his knees and started scrabbling for his shoes. The rain smothered and blinded him. His clothes were already soaking. Frantically, he passed his hands over the road. He found one shoe, then the other, and hurried to pull them on, leaving the laces untied.
The stranger had headed off to the right. Patrick followed, hampered by rain and darkness. Lightning flashed again, sheet upon sheet of it, white and cold like anger. Stencilled against the night, he saw a car and a man opening the door. He stumbled forward, desperate now.
There was the sound of an engine rasping, unwilling to ignite. He had a chance. Panting, he ran through the darkness. The engine turned again and died. A lace caught beneath his foot and sent him off balance, pitching forward in a heap, skinning his hands badly on the rough ground. He heard the engine cough then hold. Biting back the pain, he hauled himself to his feet, staggering across the last few yards.
He crashed into the car as it pulled away from the kerb, turned, ran, snatched for the handle. The door opened and he threw himself into the seat as the vehicle picked up speed. The driver had not yet switched on his lights. Rain and darkness flooded the windscreen.
Patrick reached for the wheel, pulling it towards him. The driver braked suddenly, sending them into a spin. The car mounted the kerb, tilted, and crumpled against the sea wall.
Panicking, the driver opened his door and stumbled into the road. He slipped, then picked himself up and began to run.
Patrick threw his own door open, but it stuck on the wall, leaving a gap too narrow for him to squeeze through. He wriggled across the gear-stick, then out through the driver’s door. Wind and rain grabbed him, tearing him back into their world. He spluttered, catching his breath, and broke into a run.
Another stroke of lightning raced down the sky, dragging behind it an angry roll of thunder. Out at sea, raging waves were frozen, as though the light had carved them in an instant out of raw ice. A ship appeared, running for harbour, hopeless and alone on crystal waves. He saw the man jump the wall, heading for the beach.
The sand was already filled with rain. His feet sank in it. It was like treacle, clawing at him, pulling him down. He moved as though in a dream, no longer certain why he was here. The world had vanished and been replaced by nightmare. He could hear waves crashing on rocks and wind tearing the sky to shreds. Jagged bands of lightning grew out of nowhere like the sudden branches of giant trees. The man was only yards ahead of him, scrambling among white spray at the edge of the rocks. A crash of thunder rolled across the void.
Patrick shouted, but the wind snatched the words from his mouth, leaving him breathless. The man was crazy. The rocks he was climbing on would soon be covered as the tide came further in: he could find no shelter there.
Waves were already dragging at his ankles. He pushed further out into the freezing water, unable to see a thing, his eyes blinded by the last flash of lightning. The water was already at his knees.
The first rock caught him unawares, striking him in the shin and almost sending him flying into the sea. He scrambled onto it, crouching down, finding his way to the next by touch. He was no longer sure which way the land
