The man nodded. ‘I have to close the door to unlock the chain.’
‘Please make sure you reopen it.’ Henry saw the man smile.
The door closed. The chain slid back. The man opened up and stood on the threshold, one step above Henry on the pavement. He had to look up to the man and did not like what he saw — an unusually tall and wide Asian man with yellows for his eyes, rather than whites, and a scar on his face running from his upper lip to just below his right eye. He was probably in his mid-thirties and looked mean. He smelled clean and wore a crisp white shirt and pressed jeans, as though he had just got showered and dressed. His thick black hair was slicked back, and wet. Henry noticed his hands and wrists were thick. They looked capable of strangulation.
‘May I come in?’
The man smiled again, stepped down off the threshold and looked both ways up and down the street before standing aside to allow Henry to brush past him into the hallway. The man came in behind, making Henry realize that, because there was a Yale lock on the door, it was now locked from the outside.
Henry hesitated but the man gestured, saying, ‘Go through, please … the door at the end is the kitchen … we can talk in there … I’ll make tea.’
‘Thanks,’ Henry said, lulled by this. He set off down the hallway, horribly aware of his vulnerability, but at the same time chiding himself for being so cynical as to tar everyone he came across as a potential psycho. There could be the simplest explanation for two cops being out of contact. Maybe they’d just gone for a brew somewhere, switched everything off. Cops had been known to do stupid things like that, difficult as it was to believe.
Four steps down the hall and Henry knew he was in real trouble.
What gave the game away was the blood on the floor and the walls.
His eyes firstly saw a blood spurt on the wall, level with his shoulder.
Since blood gets pumped by the heart around the body under great pressure, when a major artery or vein is severed there is a forceful gush of blood — and what Henry saw was a textbook example of such a spurt.
He had seen enough bloodstains in his life to know when he was looking at one caused by such an injury. Even as he was registering this, and seeing the rest of the blood splattered around the walls and floor, his body was reacting by spinning around to face the man behind him — and seeing the knife in the man’s right hand already on its downward trajectory as he tried to stab Henry in the back.
It was a hell of a knife too, ten inches of honed steel blade, and even then, part of Henry’s mind tried to work out where it could have been concealed — but that was an academic muse in that split second of time. The fact was, he had hidden it and now he was using it.
Henry twisted away with a grunt and the knife slashed harmlessly through the air, narrowly missing him. He heard it whoosh by.
Now standing at ninety degrees to the man, Henry brought up his elbow and rammed it ferociously into the man’s face before the knife could come back up. He caught him a hard blow just on the nose, knocking him staggering backwards. But the blow did not connect with the accuracy or force Henry would have truly wished, and instantly, despite the blood flow from his smashed nose, the Asian guy found his balance and charged back at him, with a howl on his contorted lips, the knife coming upwards towards Henry’s solar plexus.
There was hardly room to manoeuvre in the three-foot-wide hallway, but as the knife curved upwards, Henry jumped back like a scalded cat, knocking the knife out of the way and feeling it slice across the soft, fleshy part of his left hand below his little finger, making him drop his radio. Still the man came at him, yelling, ‘You should not have come!’ and trying to slash Henry, who found himself stumbling backwards in an effort to keep clear of the attack, his forearms raised defensively. He felt the material in the sleeves of his leather jacket slice open, but offer more protection than a normal suit jacket.
The man was moving quickly at him.
Henry’s back slammed against the kitchen door, trapping him, making him an easy victim.
But then the attack stopped, but only because the man realized that he now had Henry just where he wanted him. He readjusted his grip on the knife, wiped the blood from his face, smiled and lunged again, intent on murder.
Which gave Henry no choice in the matter.
Either he stayed where he was and tried to fend off the attack, which he knew would end in a messy, sliced-up death; or he got in close and personal and fought dirtier than he’d ever done in his life.
The knife arced towards him, its silver blade flashing.
Henry knocked it away with a sweep of his hand, making the man’s right arm flick briefly sideways and thereby giving Henry an ‘in’ into his body which he knew he would not have again.
He flung himself low and mightily into the man, twisting and driving his shoulder into the man’s chest, expelling all the air out of him as his shoulder connected with his breastbone. Henry did not stop, did not allow the impact to break his momentum, but continued to power back down the hall, wrapping his arms around the man, pushing him relentlessly back, keeping him off balance, all the way to the front door, crashing against it with a massive whack. Henry kept himself crushed tight into the man, body to body, and began pummelling him as the man struggled to climb away from Henry’s onslaught and get himself into a position to drive the knife over Henry’s shoulder into his back.
Henry managed to deliver a powerful body punch, making the man drop the knife. The man gasped, hurt, but immediately smashed his forehead into Henry’s face, catching him below his right eye.
The blow stunned him. Stars and lightning rushed past Henry’s eyes. Instinctively his hands went to his face, even though he knew he should not let it affect him.
He took a blow to the groin as the man tried to ram a knee into Henry’s testicles. It was a weak blow, not serious or painful, but it made Henry respond by grabbing the man’s throat and whacking his head against the front door, twice.
Suddenly the man got a surge of energy and power from deep within.
With an inhuman cry he managed to wrestle Henry’s hands from his throat and bend back Henry’s fingers, forcing him on to his knees as he attempted to break his fingers.
Meanwhile, Henry’s own strength had evaporated and he found himself being overpowered by a big, fit man. He stared into the man’s wild eyes, the eyes of the man who was going to murder him.
Simultaneous thoughts skittered through Henry’s mind as he sank to his knees: I haven’t called Kate this morning; why did I screw Angela Cranlow? I don’t want to die here.
Then he deliberately fell backwards, catching the attacker by surprise, upending him so that he would lose balance, let go of Henry’s fingers and fall on top of him. Suddenly they were face to face, rolling from side to side across the narrow hall, each trying desperately to be the one who got on top, get the advantage. They punched, kicked, scratched.
As they smacked against the skirting board, they were cheek to cheek. Henry opened his mouth, bared his teeth, then sank them into the man’s ear lobe and bit hard, worrying the ear like a dog on a rabbit, drawing blood which he tasted. The man howled in excruciating pain, spurring him on with a resurgence of effort.
The man’s face reared back and he spat a mouthful of blood into Henry’s eyes and for the next few moments Henry had to fight blind, until suddenly the man got in a punch, connecting with the side of Henry’s head, jarring his brain. He went limp and disorientated, let go of the man, who scrambled away from him and crawled down the hall.
Henry’s senses flooded back. He wiped his face and rolled on to his stomach, realizing that the man was trying to reach the knife. Henry grabbed the man’s left ankle and yanked him backwards and tried to crawl up him as though he was climbing a rope. The man kicked out and caught Henry in the face, just on the spot where he had previously head-butted him under the right eye. Something cracked, sending a nauseous feeling through him, but he held on, grimly determined that he would not lose this one. The man continually kicked back, but Henry wrapped his arms round his legs, preventing him from reaching the knife.