The Lost Testament

29

Treading as carefully and quietly as he could, Husani walked into the bedroom used by his two children and crossed to the window. He kept well back from the glass, positioning himself so that he could just see the lane that ran outside his house, and the area around the front door. He could see the figure of a man.

Husani edged closer to the window as the man outside repeated his knock. He couldn’t make out the face of the figure standing in the road because of the hat he was wearing, the headgear completely obscuring his features.

It could be completely innocent, perhaps somebody wanting to buy or sell a relic, or even a messenger sent by the man who ran his shop, though in either case his assistant would surely have called his mobile to advise him. Husani didn’t believe either scenario for a moment. A feeling of cold dread settled on him, and what happened next confirmed his fear.

The figure outside glanced in both directions along the street and then, with a click that was clearly audible to Husani in the room above, opened a switchblade knife and slid the point between the door and the jamb, obviously attempting to slip the lock. Husani thanked his lucky stars that he’d remembered to close both the bolts: unless the man kicked down the door, he wasn’t going to be able to get inside the house that way. The downside was that the man outside would soon realize that somebody had to be in the property for the door to have been bolted on the inside.

He stepped back from the window, trying to decide what to do. There was a rear door to the house, but to reach it he would have to walk down the stairs which ran close to the front door, and if he did that the man outside would probably hear him, and perhaps guess where he was going.

Husani moved forward again to the window and peered down. As he did so, he saw the figure outside step back from the door and again glance all around him. This time he looked up as well, towards the windows on the first floor of the house that overlooked the street.

Immediately, Husani shrank back. He didn’t think the man had seen him, but he couldn’t be sure, and he muttered a curse under his breath. But he still needed to know what the man was doing, so after a few moments he edged cautiously forward again and looked down.

The man had gone. He wasn’t in sight anywhere along the street. Husani looked in both directions, but the figure had vanished, and there hadn’t been time for him to disappear around a corner or into an alley.

That could only mean one thing. He must have gone around to the back of the house, and Husani was very aware that the rear door offered nothing like the same level of security as the one that opened onto the street. He knew he had just seconds to act.

Heedless of the noise he was making, he ran out of the room and down the stairs, the pistol clutched in his right hand, the suitcase forgotten, abandoned on the landing. He ran across to the front door and wrenched back one of the bolts. Then he stopped. Suppose it was just a trick? Suppose the intruder had simply walked down the side of the house, and ducked out of sight, and was now waiting for Husani to obligingly open the street door so that he could push his way inside?

For a moment he stood there, his body quivering with fear and indecision. He left the second bolt in place and stepped to one side, to a small window which gave a partial view of the street, and looked out.

But almost at the same moment as he did so, he heard a splintering crash behind him, and knew in that instant that the man had broken open the rear door and was now inside the house.

The killer was right behind him.