The Eden Legacy

II

Boris popped the buckle of his new knife’s sheath as he followed Knox down the alley, gripped it firmly by its hilt. The feel of it brought back vividly his first time, nearly twenty years ago now, as a young farm-worker seeking general vengeance for the rape and murder of his mother, one of the many atrocities of Georgia’s brutal civil war, but the only one that had mattered to him. They’d been waiting in ambush beneath a thin line of trees for an approaching patrol. He remembered still lining his man up in his sights, the way he’d fallen in the snow, the inhuman sounds he’d made as he’d struggled against his fate, reaching out a beseeching arm for the comrades who’d already turned and fled. Bullets had been too precious to waste, so Boris had drawn his knife as he advanced upon his man. It had been so obvious that he was dying, however, that he’d just stood there watching with his companions until it was over; and, afterwards, he’d been struck most by his own detachment, his lack of feeling anything at all.

Some fence-posts had collapsed ahead, brought down by the weight of a makeshift fly-tip that had spilled out into the alley, stinking and buzzing with flies. Boris couldn’t have asked for anything better. Getting this kind of operation right depended on knowing exactly what you intended to do. He therefore rehearsed it in his mind like a high-jumper before starting his run-up: left hand over Knox’s mouth to keep him quiet, right hand sawing through his throat. Then heave him up and over the flytip, take some pictures with his camera-phone before covering him with his groundsheet, kicking rubbish over him. With luck, even if his disappearance provoked a search, it would be a day or more before he was found. Plenty of time to fetch Davit and make their escape.

He quickened his pace, turned the knife around in his hand, the better to carve through Knox’s throat. He was just two paces behind him when a pair of girls playing tag ran shrieking into the end of the alley ahead. They saw Knox and Boris, shrieked gleefully some more, turned and fled. Knox must have seen the flicker in their eyes; he glanced around and saw Boris so close behind that it made him start. ‘Christ!’ he said. ‘I didn’t realise you were there.’

Just for a moment, Boris considered going for it anyway, but then he remembered that this man had bested Mikhail Nergadze in single combat-Mikhail Nergadze, the only person who’d ever truly put the fear of God into Boris. He hesitated just a blink, but it was enough, his opportunity was gone. He hid his knife against his wrist, offered an apologetic smile, then walked on by, out on to the beach, cursing his bad luck, wondering when next he’d have so good a chance to take his revenge and make himself rich.