Every now and then I glanced across the room. Always the thin man’s eyes were on me, old in crime and its counter-moves, knowing what was in my mind, what defences I was preparing. I sensed this, but I went on with my little preparations, thinking, as I had at the English school, ‘When they hurt me, and I know they’re meaning to hurt me, I must somehow hurt them back. When they get me, rape me, kill me, they mustn’t find it easy.’
Rape? Kill? What did I think was really going to happen to me? I didn’t know. I only knew that I was in desperate trouble. The men’s faces said so – the indifferent face and the greedy face. They both had it in for me. Why? I didn’t know. But I was absolutely certain of it.
I had broken eight eggs into a bowl and had whipped them gently with a fork. The huge chunk of butter had melted in the saucepan. Beside it, in the frying pan, the bacon was beginning to sizzle. I poured the eggs into the saucepan and began to stir. While my hands concentrated, my mind was busy on ways to escape. Everything depended on whether the man called Sluggsy, when he came back from his inspection, remembered to lock the back door. If he didn’t, I could make a dash for it. There would be no question of using the Vespa. I hadn’t run it for a week. Priming the carburettor, and the three kicks that might be necessary to start it from cold, would be too long. I would have to leave my belongings, all my precious money, and just go like a hare to right or left, get round the end of the cabins and in among the trees. I reflected that of course I wouldn’t run to the right. The lake behind the cabins would narrow my escape route. I would run to the left. There, there was nothing but miles of trees. I would be soaked to the skin within a few yards of the door, and freezing cold for the rest of the night. My feet, in their stupid little sandals, would be cut to ribbons. I might easily get lost into the bargain. But those were problems I would have to cope with. The main thing was to get away from these men. Nothing else mattered.
The eggs were ready and I heaped them out, still very soft, on to a flat dish and added the bacon round the sides. I put the pile of toast from the Toastmaster on another plate, together with a slab of butter still in its paper, and put the whole lot on a tray. I was glad to see that plenty of dust rose to the top when I poured boiling water over the coffee, and I hoped it would choke them. Then I carried the tray out from behind the bar and, feeling more respectable in my apron, took it over to where the thin man was sitting.
As I put it down, I heard the back door open and then slam shut. There had been no click of a lock. I looked quickly round. Sluggsy’s hands were empty. My heart began to beat wildly. Sluggsy came over to the table. I was taking things off the tray. He looked the meal over and came swiftly behind me and seized me round the waist, nuzzling his ghastly face into my neck. ‘Just like mother made ’em, baby. Howsabout you and me shacking up together? If you can — like you can cook, you’re the gal of my dreams. What say, bimbo? Is it a deal?’
I had my hand on the coffee pot and he was just going to get the boiling contents slung over my shoulder. Horror saw my intention. He said sharply, ‘Leave her be, Sluggsy. I said later.’ The words came out like a whiplash, and at once Sluggsy let me go. The thin man said, ‘Ya nearly got ya eyeballs fried. Ya want to watch this dame. Quit foolin’ around and sit down. We’re on a job.’
Sluggsy’s face showed bravado, but also obedience. ‘Have a heart, pal! I want a piece of this baby. But now!’ But he pulled out a chair and sat down, and I moved quickly away.
The big radio and TV was on a pedestal near the back door. It had been playing softly all this time, although I had been quite unconscious of it. I went to the machine and fiddled with the dials, putting the volume up. The two men were talking to each other quietly and there was the clatter of cutlery. Now or never! I measured my distance to the door handle and dived to the left.
9 | THEN I BEGAN TO SCREAM
I heard a single bullet crash into the metal frame of the door, and then, with my hand cushioning the ice-pick so it didn’t stick into me, I was running hell for leather across the wet grass. Mercifully the rain had let up, but the grass was soaking and slippery under my hopeless flat soles and I knew I wasn’t making enough speed. I heard a door crash open behind me and Sluggsy’s voice shouted, ‘Hold it, or you’re cold turkey!’ I began to weave, but then the shots came, carefully, evenly spaced, and bees whipped past me and slapped into the grass. Another ten yards and I would be at the corner of the cabins and out of the light. I dodged and zigzagged, my skin quivering as it waited for the bullet. A window in the last cabin tinkled with broken glass and I was round the corner. As I dived into the soaking wood I heard a car start up. What was that for?
