What am I doing here? he asked himself. There was no answer. No answer at all and he hauled himself over the edge of the cliff and sprawled face down in the wet grass.
(12)
After a while he opened his eyes and saw the boots a few inches from his face. They were hand-made and very expensive. He started to get up and there was a low, warning growl like thunder rumbling faintly in the distance.
He rolled on to his back and looked up. Miklos Davos stood over him. He wore a thigh-length hunting jacket with a fur collar and a green Tyrolean hat slanted across the wedge-shaped devil’s face. He carried a double-barrelled shotgun under one arm.
The source of the growl was a magnificent black-and-tan Dobermann and it moved forward threateningly, eyes glowing like hot coals.
“Down, Kurt! Down!” Davos said. “I don’t think we need to worry about Mr. Brady. He doesn’t look too healthy.”
He squatted, the shotgun comfortably across his knees, and produced a large leather hip flask. “I’ve been watching your progress for the past half-hour. You’ve had a rough crossing. A little brandy will settle your stomach.”
Brady didn’t bother to argue. He took the flask and swallowed, coughing as the raw liquor burned its way down into his gullet.
A warm, pleasant glow spread inside him. He swallowed deeply again and began to feel a little better.
Davos had busied himself lighting a Turkish cigarette and now he smiled. “I trust you feel less like a corpse, my friend.”
“You lousy bastard!” Brady croaked.
A slight sardonic smile touched the dark, saturnine face. “So, there is still a spark of life? That promises very well. Would you care for a cigarette?”
Brady took one and leaned forward for the proffered light. For a moment, he considered making a move, but as if sensing his thoughts, the Dobermann growled threateningly.
Brady subsided, coughing slightly as the smoke of the harsh Turkish tobacco caught at the back of his throat, and Davos said, “By the way, as I haven’t heard from Haras since yesterday, I’m presuming I won’t do.”
“I’m afraid he met with a nasty accident last night,” Brady said. “He should have looked where he was going.”
“You’ve really done astonishingly well during the last couple of days,” Davos said. “When Haras told me you’d somehow got out of Manningham Gaol and given him the slip, I had a premonition we would see each other again.”
“I’d have followed you to Hell if necessary,” Brady said.
“But Hell is too crowded, my friend.” Davos smiled gently. “There was never anything of a personal nature in this affair, Brady.”
“I know,” Brady said wearily. “I just happened to be the first drunk on the first bench on the Embankment that night.”
“I’m afraid you were,” Davos said. “If they had carried out the death sentence, everything would have been fine. Unfortunately, the Home Secretary chose to commute it to life imprisonment.”
“That must have really messed things up for you,” Brady said.
“It did, I assure you,” Davos said. “In this country reprieved murderers serve on the average, no more than seven years of their sentence. The English are such a humane people.”
“So you decided to carry out the original sentence of the court,” Brady said.
“I had no choice.” Davos shrugged. “There was always the chance that you would see my face somewhere and recognize it. Perhaps the odd newspaper photo or something like that. If not this year, the next or the one after. I had no intention of allowing such a possibility to threaten my peace of mind indefinitely.”
Brady flicked his cigarette out into space. He was tired. So tired that he was finding it difficult to concentrate. “What happens now?”
“An intriguing situation, isn’t it?” Davos smiled. “Just the two of us — and Kurt, of course. I sent my caretaker and his wife over to the mainland when I arrived yesterday.”
The Hungarian stood up and Brady scrambled to his feet and faced him, swaying slightly. “What’s it to be? A bullet in the back?”
“But my dear fellow, nothing so unsporting.” Davos patted the dog and it whined restlessly. “Wonderful animals, Dobermanns, Brady. When fully trained, they can kill a man in under a minute.”
“Quite an accomplishment,” Brady said.
“It is indeed.” Davos backed away and raised the shotgun. “I think the fence at the top of the slope would give you a fair start. It must be at least seventy-five yards away.”
“I’d like about two minutes alone with you,” Brady said bitterly. “That’s all it would take.”
“I suggest you get started,” Davos said. “My patience is beginning to run out.”
Brady took his time going up the slope. There was no strength left in him and his limbs felt as heavy as lead.
He paused once to glance back over his shoulder. Davos stood waiting, holding the dog firmly by its collar. “You’ll have to do better than that, Brady,” he called.
What had the woman called him? A brutal and perverted sadist, ceaselessly searching for new sensation. Something sparked inside Brady, filling him with white-hot killing rage, flooding his weary limbs with a new energy. He breasted the slope in a few quick strides and clambered over the fence.
The Dobermann howled once as Davos released it and Brady ran down a slight incline into a wooded valley. At most, he had three or four minutes. He ran into the trees and blundered through a plantation of young firs, branches slashing his face.
He staggered on, one arm raised as a shield and suddenly lost his balance and fell, rolling over and over down a bank through sodden bracken and into a small stream.
It was no more than a couple of feet deep and he followed its course for thirty or forty yards, brown water foaming around him as he splashed forward, until the water deepened suddenly as the stream emptied into a round pool.
He struggled across to the other side and pulled himself up out of the water on to a steeply shelving bank, covered with boulders and rocks.
Somewhere near by, the Dobermann howled and he could hear it crashing through the undergrowth. He started to peel his sodden jacket from his body. He had just got it off, when the dog erupted from the undergrowth on the far side of the pool, plunged into the water and swam strongly towards him.
He waited until it was about three feet away and tossed his jacket over its head. The Dobermann reared up, snarling and trying to free itself and Brady picked up a stone as big as a man’s head, staggered into the water and brought it down with all his force.
There was a dreadful cracking sound and bone splintered. The Dobermann screamed like a human being and bucked frantically. He brought the stone down again and all movement ceased.
He turned away, sobbing for breath and scrambled across the slippery boulders. Now all he had to do was stay ahead of Davos and get to the house. There was bound to be another gun there somewhere.
He could taste blood in his mouth as he clawed his way up through the fir trees and emerged on to level ground. At this point, the trees swept out in an arc, thinly scattered over the ground, until they almost touched the fence. As Brady started forward, there was a cry of anger and Davos appeared about forty yards to the left.
The Hungarian moved with astonishing rapidity, firing the first barrel as he ran. Brady was almost at the fence. He ducked as shot screamed through the rain over his head and then scrambled over and started to run, weaving desperately from side to side.
He had gone no more than twenty yards when the Hungarian reached the fence and fired the second barrel. Brady cried out in agony, tripped and rolled over and over, stopping a little way from the edge of the cliffs, his face to the sky, a stone digging painfully into his back.