I saw his hand clench convulsively round the handle of the knife. Dare I push him any further? Oh, I dared!
“Joy put up more of a fight, didn't she, Dave? Caught you unawares, marked you, but even that wasn't enough was it? So then you came looking for me. Taking my voice changer threw me,” I admitted. “I thought the thugs had lifted it, that it could only be Angelo threatening me. I didn't realise it was a little runt like you.”
Stupidly, I'd missed the fact that Dave had been inside the flat the morning after Marc's boys had turned it over. I remembered his exaggerated surprise at the damage. He was over-reacting because he'd already seen it . . .
“You think it can't happen to you? Your over-confidence is your weakness,” he hissed. “I've watched you for a while, Charlie. You think you're equal to a man, but you never will be. Don't forget, I've had a private lesson. I know all about your feeble abilities. You're just like those other bitches, and you'll scream like them when I'm fucking you. You'll scream and you'll beg me to stop, just like the rest.”
“I wouldn't bet on it,” I said tautly.
“No? How about I just let you watch while I do your friend? She's a looker, all right. I bet she'll scream.”
I smothered my rising panic and shoved it viciously back down into the depths of my psyche. “That's always the way with you, isn't it, Dave? Taking the easy way out,” I taunted. “What challenge is Clare to you? She can't fight. There's nothing to stop you raping her, but I'm what you've really been after. Why waste time?”
“This – is – my – game!” Dave spelt out, face white with sudden fury. “We play it my way!”
I knew I'd gone too far. I backed down. “OK, Dave, whatever you say,” I murmured, holding my hands out, palms upwards, supplicant.
I didn't move while he stepped smoothly back into the shadows. He'd dropped all pretence now, and was moving like a pro, sure and economical. How could I have missed it before? I hadn't bothered to look beneath the surface veneer, to see past the mirage he'd created and I was kicking myself for it. How many times had people made that very same mistake with me? So often I'd almost come to rely on it as part of my camouflage.
When Dave reappeared, only moments later, it seemed, he was dragging Clare's weeping figure after him. I was horrified to see he'd bound her slim wrists together with one of the heavy duty plastic zip-ties he used to fasten his disco gear down. I knew that some police forces used them because the breaking point was phenomenal. It offered minimal chance of Clare being strong enough to force her way free.
Never let yourself be immobilised. It was one of the basic rules of self-defence.
When he reached the middle of the dance floor, Dave stopped and let Clare go. Without the support she collapsed, whimpering, cradling her wrists to her chest. The plastic had been snatched tight enough to dig cruelly through the skin. Now they left smears of blood on the front of her pale cream jumper.
Instinctively, my legs took me forwards. Dave stepped fluidly to the side, grabbed a handful of Clare's hair to yank her head up, and slid the blade of the knife under her delicate jaw. She went rigid, eyes wide with terror.
I froze, unable to take my eyes off the knife. Unable to move as Dave increased the pressure a fraction, so the razor-sharp edge just bit through the top layer of her skin and her blood began to weep down over the polished steel. I swallowed, my mouth abruptly arid, tongue swollen like a man too long in the desert.
Dave tutted, grinning. “Oh no, Charlie, not so fast,” he warned. “Your reflexes might be passable, but even you couldn't get over here before I'd given your friend a second mouth to feed. And you won't be able to save her afterwards, will you? Remember Joy?”
“So what happens now?” I asked, my voice a whisper.
“You strip,” Dave said. “Get rid of that leather jacket, for a start.”
I did as I was told without protest, dropping the offending piece of clothing onto the floor next to me. Stared at him. Tried not to concentrate on Clare's shock-glazed face.
“And the boots. Take them off.”
I bent to unfasten them, but as I did so I had a chance sighting of Dave easing the knife slightly away from Clare's throat, changing his grip.
It was a chance, a slim hope, but it was there. There was nothing else I could do but grab it with both hands and pray.
Arms outstretched, yelling, I drove my body upright and onwards, and launched myself at Dave.
Twenty-five
Dave knew all the rules of hand-to-hand. I found that out the hard way, but the surprise of my initial charge had the desired effect of making him move back, putting some distance between him and Clare. I hoped she'd take the opportunity to make a run for it, but catching a glimpse of her inert form slumped on the floor, it seemed unlikely.
Dave and I circled each other, half-crouched and intent. He held the knife like an expert, with the pommel of the hilt upwards and the blade slanted down, protecting his forearm. It stopped me being able to get a grip on his wrist, putting a lock onto him that would force him to his knees and disarm him.
I switched tactics. I blanked my mind of the knife, but at the same time was acutely aware of its position and direction. Instead I concentrated on the man behind it. He was focusing all his energies into the weapon he was carrying, relying on it to be both offence and defence. If I could just slip past his guard . . .
I tried it, feinting right, then dodging left and lashing out with my boot to his kneecap. Dave's reactions were faster than I'd hoped. I caught him a mild blow, enough to hurt but not disable, and received a thin slicing cut across my bicep for my trouble.
He only just nicked me. If I'd still been wearing my jacket, I doubt it would have pierced the skin, but the thin material of my T-shirt offered little armour.
I made a big play of clamping my fingers over the wound and grimacing, but in fact the pain was little more than a twinge. Knife wounds are clean and straight, and unless they're deep enough to be serious, they heal quickly. A punch on the nose would probably have done me more damage.
“You think you can defeat me,” Dave crowed now, “but you've got no chance. You know what? I think I'm going to have you, then have your friend as well. She looks sweet enough to be dessert.”
“You better be into necrophilia then,” I growled, “because you're going to have to kill me first, you sick bastard.”
Dave straightened for a moment, and the look in his eyes was quite insane. “Oh by the end of this you're going to be dead, Charlie,” he said, his voice almost distant. “Even if I don't manage it today, you'll always know that one day I'll catch up with you, and when I do, you'll die.”
He started to laugh, and as he did so, I shifted and sprang.
I managed to dive under his guard, get past the first layer of defence, but he swung his fist round sideways and hit me hard in the face, with the steel pommel of the knife. It landed just under my eye and the noise of my cheekbone fracturing sounded disgustingly loud inside my head.
Streaks of pain shot round my skull like cracks, stars exploded in my vision. That side of my face felt as though it had instantly swelled up to twice its normal size, half closing my eye.
I stumbled and fell onto the flooring. Once I was down Dave kicked me twice in the ribs, vigorously, just for good measure. Then he stood over me and checked my reaction like he was studying a lab rat. My body turned in on itself, fighting the pain. My ribs were on fire, every breath was agony.