Adam Hall - Quiller Barracuda

Honing the knife.

The noon heat pressed down from a brassy sky, and the glare off the water hit the inside of the cabin like a floodlight. The sea was mirror-smooth, with a long swell running. We were somewhere south of Cape Florida, she'd told me, ten miles from the mainland. We didn't want, she'd said, anyone looking at us through field glasses again.

Honing the knife, turning the blade on the stone, a big knife, long, curving to a fine point. One of her breasts showed inside the loose turquoise bra, the nipple raised. She wasn't sitting like that, leaning forward, to invite my interest; she was just used to being alone on board.

'I shall have to make it a clean kill,' she said.

The swell lifted the tug, lowered it. I could see the Cape, north by north-east, and two other vessels, one of them moving out of the bay under limp sails, and a motor yacht on the south horizon. She'd said it was the Contessa.

'Right into the brain, through the eye. If I don't do it cleanly, he'll flash away. They don't like being hurt – and he'd remember.' Looking up, her green eyes seeing the shark, not me. 'Don't underestimate those beasts.'

She hadn't wanted to bring me to the tug, early this morning. She'd moved with me through the pale underwater light but I hadn't gone straight to the quay; there were a lot of people milling around there, silhouetted against the floodlights, and the Coastguard helicopter was still hovering above the sunken boat. I'd surfaced to breathe and then dived again, leading her past the end of the jetty before I climbed onto a moored boat well clear of the action and reached the quay.

'Are you all right?' Her mask off, watching me.

'Yes. Can you get me away from here?'

'You need an ambulance,' she said. 'You're hurt.'

Blood reddening the water trickling from my clothes. 'Look, get me away, will you? I don't want people asking a lot of questions.' It was dangerous, perhaps, to trust her, but I'd been losing blood and hadn't slept and if I dropped suddenly she'd go for one of the ambulances and I didn't want that. There'd be some of Nicko's friends in that crowd along there and my photo was in circulation. I didn't want a police enquiry either because it'd hold things up.

'Why don't you want them to ask questions?' Not letting it go, not taking anything for granted, watching me hard with her green eyes.

I'd said the wrong thing, you see, not feeling terribly bright at the moment. 'In any case, I don't want anyone to see me. They're still trying to kill me.'

She'd remember the shooting, yesterday. Swaying a little now, swaying comfortably, enjoying the rhythm, the lights of the city swinging away, swinging back, watch it , yes, don't want ambulance.

'Who are? The police?'

Oh Jesus Christ, what made her think that? The drug scene, I suppose, she was so used to it, thought I was a dealer, man on the run. 'No. Toufexis. His people.'

'Toufexis?' Didn't take her eyes off me. 'All right, I'll take you out of here, but I want to know who you are.'

'Government.' The whole city swinging, swinging back, the lights dizzying. 'HM Government.'

'You'll have to prove that, or I'm turning you in.' She searched for the knife wound, somewhere under my shirt, left side, found it. 'Handkerchief? Okay, keep it pressed there while I get the car.'

On the way to the tug I showed her my identity and told her there were two bodies back there, Fidel's and Nicko's, and perhaps a man still alive, Vicente, in the water, she could phone the rescue team and tell them that. Then I lost the whole thing and woke up on the boat.

'I was a nurse,' she said, 'for seven years. Does that hurt?'

'No.' Morning light across the sea. I'd slept nearly five hours and woke feeling successful, in a way, because I'd got that man's wallet and it had Proctor's number in it, or the number of the place where he could be reached, where Nicko had reached him from the boat.

'I liked it,' she said, 'being a nurse. But those male chauvinist pigs finally got under my skin and I quit, slammed the door of the emergency room in one of their faces, as a matter of fact, broke his nose. They think we're just their assistants, but nursing's a profession too; we're professionals like they are, and we spend a lot more time with the patients, and get very much closer, and that matters, you know, it's very often a question of life and death if you hold someone's hand at the right moment. But those bastards just think we're scullery maids. Keep your arm away, this is the last one.' Curved needle, going into the flesh and out again across the wound, she might have been sewing a sock, very expert. 'I keep this kit for me, really. How do you feel?'

'Good shape.'

'Because you've lost some blood, as you know, but we can't tell how much. You're a bit white still, but that could be shock hanging about. Hold absolutely still while I get a bandage.'

Came back and I said, 'Are you a police reservist or something?'

'Volunteer diver, that's all. They beeped me. So I want to know all about it, Richard, because I could be some kind of accessory after the fact or concealing evidence or a dozen other things.' Looking at me straight. 'I took a risk, bringing you here, and you owe me. But all I want is the truth.'

Told her the whole thing and there wasn't any danger in that because she already knew I was looking for Proctor and the only thing I was adding now was that Proctor was looking for me.

'When you say he's "looking for you", what exactly does that mean?'

'He'd like to find me.'

It wasn't an answer and she knew that. In a moment – 'Is he trying to kill you?'

'I think so.'

She dropped the unused bandage into the medical kit and snapped the lid shut. 'Was that him, shooting at your car?'

'No.'

'How d'you know?'

'He's no good with a gun.'

'All right, then did he set you up?'

'Either he did, or whoever he's working for.'

'Is he working for Toufexis?'

'I don't know.'

'Look, if you'd rather -'

'I don't honestly know. But I'd like to.'

'Well that's the point.' She'd seen the yacht with the slack canvas coming out of the bay, and watched it for a moment. 'If you want to find Proctor, maybe I can help. But you'll have to tell me more about things, and if you'd rather not, then say so.'

'Why would you want to help me?'

In the labyrinth, where you can't see much more than the next corner, it's nice to know which side people are on, and even nicer to know why. People change their minds sometimes, and that's because their motivation isn't strong enough to keep them stable: it happens all the time.

'I think I want to help you,' she said in a moment, 'because I like you. Not like, exactly. I find you intriguing. First you get shot at and bloody nearly burned alive and the next time I see you it's six fathoms down with bodies and banknotes all over the place.' She held her gaze for a while. 'Turns me on. And as I told you, he's an absolute shit and I'd very much like to see you put him in the gun sights and drop him stone cold dead.' Looking down, 'I phoned your hotel, after that shooting, to see if you were still in the land of the living.'

'Kind of you.'

In a moment she said, 'I did a year in bomb disposal when I was still in England. It -'

'That was before you lost your father?'

She looked up quickly. 'Yes. Why?'

'I mean you had these -' wrong start, had these suicidal tendencies was not very flattering – 'these urges to push things to the brink quite a while ago.'

She watched me quietly and when she spoke again her voice was lower. 'I suppose so. We're a bit alike, aren't we? It used to turn me on – and this is why I mentioned it, actually, about bomb disposal – it used to give me a real kick to sort of be in their presence, just sitting quietly in front of those things, knowing how much awful power there was in them. And being close to you gives me the same feeling, I mean the tension comes off you in absolute waves. And I like that.'