The Alchemist

41

Ben turned the Renault into Anna’s driveway, its worn tyres crunching on the gravel and its headlights sweeping the front of the villa.

‘Look, she’s got visitors,’ said Roberta, noticing the shiny black Lexus GS parked in front of the house. ‘I told you we should have phoned first. It’s awfully rude, you know, just landing on people like this.’

He was out of the car, not listening. He’d noticed something lying on the ground, sticking out from the shadow of the Lexus. He realized with shock that it was an arm. A man’s dead arm, the hand clawed, bloody.

He ran round the side of the car, scenarios flashing through his mind. He crouched down beside the body and ran his eye over the gaping wound in the man’s throat. He’d seen enough cut throats in his life to recognize the work of a professional. He touched the skin; it still had some warmth left in it.

‘What is it, Ben?’ she asked, coming up behind him.

He rose up quickly and took her by the shoulders, turning her away. ‘Best not to look.’ But Roberta had seen it. She pressed her hands to her mouth, trying not to gag.

‘Stay close to me,’ he whispered. He raced to the villa, leaping up the steps. The front door was locked. He ran around the side of the house, Roberta following, and found the french window open. He slipped into the house, drawing the Browning. Roberta caught up with him, ashen-faced, and he motioned to her to stay still and quiet.

He stepped over the twitching, broken body of a canary in its death throes, its yellow feathers stained red. A small statue lay on the floor at the foot of the stairs. He could see light from upstairs, music playing. His face hardened. He took the steps three at a time, flipping off the Browning’s safety.

Anna’s bedroom was empty, but the bathroom door was ajar. He burst in, bringing the gun up to aim, not knowing what he was going to find inside.

Franco Bozza had been enjoying himself. He had spent the last five minutes slowly slicing the buttons off her blouse one at a time, slapping her back down into the puddle of her blood when she struggled. A glistening crimson rivulet trickled down the valley between her breasts. He ran the flat of the blade down her skin to her quivering stomach, hooked the razor point behind the next button and was about to slice it off when the sudden sound of running footsteps startled him out of his trance.

He whipped round, saliva on his chin. He was a big, heavy man but his reactions were fast. He grabbed the woman by the hair and yanked her screaming to her feet as he leapt up, twisting her body round in front of him as the door swung open with a juddering crash.

Ben’s horror at the scene in front of him slowed him down half a second too long. Anna’s eyes met his, wide and white in a mask of blood. The powerful grey-haired man had his arm around her throat, using her as a shield.

Ben’s finger was on the trigger. You can’t shoot. His sights wavered, the target uncertain. He slackened the pressure on the trigger.

Bozza’s arm jerked and the blade flashed across the room in a hissing blur. Ben ducked. The steel passed an inch from his face and embedded itself with a thud in the door behind him. Bozza’s hand whipped across his chest and through the neck of his plastic overall, ripping the little Beretta.380 from his holster. Ben took a chance and fired off a shot, but his bullet went wide for fear of hitting Anna. At almost the same instant Bozza’s pistol cracked and Ben felt the bullet turn on the hip-flask in his pocket. He staggered back a step, momentarily stunned, but recovering fast and bringing the Browning back up to aim as his rage exploded and his sights fell square on Bozza’s forehead. Got you now.

But before Ben could fire, Bozza flung Anna across the room towards him like a limp doll. Ben caught her, saving her from crashing on her face on the bloody floor tiles. He lost his aim.

The big man flipped backwards out of the window like a diver. There was a ferocious ripping and rustling from outside as he scrabbled down the flimsy trellis. He dropped to the ground, torn and bedraggled. A shot rang out and a bullet went past his ear, tearing a furrow in the tree-trunk next to him.

Ben leaned out of the window and fired again, blind into the darkness. The attacker was gone. For a second he thought about giving chase, but decided against it. When he turned back to Anna, Roberta had arrived and was bending over her still body. ‘Oh, my God.’

He felt her pulse. ‘She’s alive.’

‘Thank Christ. Who the…’ Roberta’s face was white. ‘This isn’t just a coincidence, is it, Ben? This has something to do with us. Jesus, did we bring this on her?’

He didn’t reply. He knelt down and checked Anna for injuries. Apart from an ugly gash on her face, its edges drying up and crusted with brown blood, she wasn’t cut anywhere.

He took his phone out of his pocket and tossed it to Roberta. ‘Call an ambulance,’ he said. ‘But not the police, and just say there’s been an accident. Don’t touch anything.’

Roberta nodded and ran into the other room.

He reached up to the chrome rail on the bathroom wall and brought down a fluffy white towel. He gently lifted Anna’s head, then placed the towel underneath to cushion her. He covered her body with a bathrobe and another towel to keep her warm, and shut the window. Kneeling back down beside her, he gently caressed her hair. It was stiff and sticky with blood. ‘You’re going to be all right, Anna,’ he murmured. ‘The ambulance won’t be long.’

She stirred, and her eyes opened. They slowly focused on him, and she mumbled something.

‘Shh, don’t try to speak.’ He smiled, but his hands were shaking with fury and he silently vowed that he was going to kill the man who’d done this.

The attacker had dropped his pistol as he’d thrown himself at the window. Ben decocked it and stuffed it into his waistband. There were some empty cartridge cases lying on the floor. He picked them up and tucked them into his pocket. He could hear Roberta in the bedroom, talking urgently on the phone.

That was when he noticed the black jacket hanging on the back of the chair.