'I want to live,' he said. 'I want to go home to my wife and my kids and pretend this never happened.'
'You can never do that,' she replied.
'I could!' he insisted. 'I swear I could!'
'You wouldn't come after me, for killing your friend?'
'You won't kill him,' Geoffrey said, thinking perhaps he was making some headway with the woman. She'd had her fun, hadn't she? She'd successfully terrorised them both; reduced him to a quivering mess and Delbert to a human dildo. What more did she need? 'If you let us go, we won't say a word. I promise. Not one word.'
'I think it's too late for that,' the woman replied. She was standing between Geoffrey's legs now. He felt horribly vulnerable.
'Let me at least help Delbert,' he begged. 'He's not done any harm to you. He's a good family man and-'
'The world's filled with family men,' she said contemptuously.
'For pity's sake, he's not done you any harm.'
'Oh, Jesus...' she said, exasperated. 'Help him, then, if you must.'
He watched her warily as he scrambled to his feet, anticipating a blow or a kick. But none came. Instead she allowed him to go to Delbert, whose face was by now purplish, his lips flecked with bloody spittle, his eyes rolled up beneath his fluttering lids. There was still breath in him, but precious little; his chest heaved with the effort of drawing air through his constricted windpipe. Fearing the battle was already lost he dug his fingers between cord and flesh and pulled. Del drew a faint, wheezing breath, but it was his last.
'Finally...' the woman said.
Geoffrey thought she was referring to Del's passing, but looking down at the man's groin realized his error. In extremis, Del was spurting like a whale.
'Jesus Christ,' Geoffrey said, nauseated.
The woman wandered over to admire the spectacle. 'You could try the kiss of life,' she said. 'You might still bring him back.'
Geoffrey looked down at Del's face: at his foamy lips and bulging sockets. Maybe there was a remote chance of starting his heart again and maybe a better friend than he would have attempted it - but nothing on God's earth could have convinced him at that moment to put his lips to the lips of Delbert Donnelly.
'No?' said the woman.
'No,' said Geoffrey.
'So you let him die. You couldn't bear to kiss him, and now he's dead.' She turned her back on Sauls and wandered away. This was not a pardon, Geoffrey knew; just a stay of execution.
'Oh Mary, mother of God,' Geoffrey said softly. 'Help me in my hour of need ...'
'You don't need a Virgin right now,' the woman said, 'you need somebody with a little more experience. Somebody who knows what's best for you.'
Geoffrey didn't turn to look at her. She'd exercised some mesmeric hold over Del, he was certain of it, and if he met her eyes she'd get into his head the same way. Somehow he had to find a way out of here without looking at her. And then there were those damn ropes to be considered. The one that had garrotted Del had already slithered away. He didn't want to look at Del's groin to see what had become of the other, but he had to assume it was loose somewhere. He would have one chance at escape, he knew. If he was not quick enough, or somehow lost his bearings and missed the exit, she would have him. However offhand she was being right now, she could not afford to let him escape; not after what he'd witnessed.
'Do you know the story of this place?' she asked him. Happy to have her distracted by conversation, he told her no, he didn't. 'It was built by a man who felt injustice very deeply.'
'Oh?'
'We knew him, Mr Steep and myself, many, many years ago. In fact, he and I were intimate, for a short time.'
'Lucky man,' Geoffrey replied, hoping to flatter. Her talk was all delusory, of course. Though he knew little about the Courthouse, he was certain it had been standing a century at least. There was no way this woman could have known its creator.
'I don't remember him well,' she fantasized. 'Except for his nose. He had the largest nose I have seen. Monolithic. And he swore it was this that made him so sympathetic to the condition of animals- While she babbled, Geoffrey covertly cast his eyes left and right, the better to orient himself. Though he couldn't actually see the door that led to freedom, he guessed it to be just out of sight near his left shoulder. Meanwhile, the woman chattered on: -they're so much more sensitive to odours than we are. But Mr Bartholomeus, because of his nose, claimed he could smell more like an animal than a man. Ambrosial, myrrhic, mephitic. He'd divided the smells up, so he had a name for every one. Putrid, musky, balsamic. I forget the others. In fact, I forget him, except for his nose. It's funny what you remember about people, isn't it?' She paused. Then: 'What's your name?'
'Geoffrey Sauls.' Was that her footfall behind him? He had to get going, or she'd be upon him. He scanned the ground for her lethal rosaries.
'No middle name?' she said.
'Oh. Yes.' He could see nothing moving, but that didn't mean they weren't there, in the shadows. 'Alexander.'
'That's a lot prettier than Geoffrey,' she said, her voice closer to him. He glanced back down at Del's dead face, to give himself that last jolt of motivation, and then he was up, and turning towards the door. He'd guessed aright. There it was, ahead of him now. From the corner of his eye he glimpsed the whore, and felt her eyes burning into him. He didn't give them the opportunity to work their hex on him. Loosing a shout he'd learned in the Territorial Army (it was designed to accompany a bayonet charge, while this was a retreat, but what the hell?) he fled for the exit. His senses were more acute than they'd been since boyhood, his adrenalin-flooded system alive to every nuance. He heard the whine of the rosaries as they flew, and glancing over his shoulder, saw them in the air like beaded lightning, flying towards him. He dodged to his right, ducking as he did so, and watched them fly past him, striking the door. There they writhed for a heartbeat, and in that beat he snatched at the handle and threw the door wide. His own strength astonished him. Though the door was heavy it swung fully open, its hinges screeching, and slammed against the wall.
'Alexander,' the woman called, her voice silky. 'Come back. Do you hear me, Alexander?'
He pelted down the passageway, unmoved by her summons, and for a very good reason. Only his mother, whom he had hated with all his heart, had ever called him by that name. The woman could call to him using all the voices of the sirens, and if she hung that dreaded Alexander upon him he would be immune.
Out now; down the steps and into the snow; ploughing towards the hedgerow, never looking back. He plunged through the thicket and out onto the road with his lungs burning, his heart drumming, and such a sense of happiness he was almost glad he was alone to enjoy it. Later, when he recounted this, he would talk quietly and mournfully of how he'd lost his friend. For now, he shouted, and laughed, and felt (oh, the perversity of this) all the more glorious because he'd not only outwitted the whore but had Del's death as proof of how terrible his jeopardy had been.
Whooping, then, and stumbling, he returned to his car, which was parked some fifty yards away, and undaunted by the icy road (nothing could harm him now; he was inviolate) he drove at foolhardy speed back into the village to sound the alarm.
ii
Back in the Courthouse, Rosa was not a happy woman. She'd been content enough until Alexander and his overweight comrade had arrived, sitting dreaming of finer places and balmier days. But now her dreams had been interrupted, and she had to make some quick decisions.
There'd be a mob at the gates soon enough, she knew: Alexander would make certain of that. They'd be feeling righteous and wrathful, and they'd surely attempt some mischief upon her person if she didn't make herself scarce. It would not be the first time she'd been harried and harassed this way. There'd been an unsavoury incident in Morocco only the year before, in which the wife of one of her occasional consorts had led a minor jihad against her, much to Jacob's amusement. The husband, like the fat fellow lying at her feet now, had died in flagrante delicto, but - unlike Donnelly - had expired with a broad smile on his face. It was the smile that had truly inflamed his wife: that she'd never seen its like in her life had put her in murderous mood. And then in Milan - oh, how she'd loved Milan! - there'd been a worse scene still. She had lingered there for several weeks while Jacob went south, and had fallen into the company of the transvestites who plied their hazardous trade about the Parco Sempione. She'd always loved things artificial, and these beauties, who were self-created females to a man (the viados, the locals called them; meaning fawns) had enchanted her. In their company she'd felt a strange sisterhood, and might have elected to stay in that city had