Female Novel
Chapter 30
Klempner
In one hand, I hold a single copper strand. In the other, a thread of brown.
My body freezes as my mind races through the possibilities.
I left my hotel room several hours earlier, slicking a hair into place over the crack between door andframe as I left. On my return, a hair was still in place and I entered my room assuming all was normal.
Now, however, in my left hand, I hold a hair just plucked from my own scalp: the mousy-brown shade ofmy current identity.
In the right hand, I hold the hair which dropped from my hotel room door as I returned, and which oncasual inspection, I had taken to be the one I slicked into place as I left the room earlier.
But the right-hand hair is red.
And now I look at it, I recognise that shade: a deep burnished copper-auburn that many women aspireto, but few have.
But Mitch has it. Jenny too;
Could it come from one of them?
Probably, yes.
Jenny…
Juliana, or at least her cat’s-paws Baxter and Finchby, had Jenny unconscious as a prisoner for somewhile. They even trimmed a lock of her pubic hair and sent it to James along with her underwear.Plucking a few hairs from her scalp would never have been noticed.
So, this could be Jenny’s hair.
On the other hand, it might just be the hair of some local woman lucky enough to have the shade.
Does it matter? Where it comes from?
Or is it just the message that’s important?
Juliana and her games…
My hand is shaking, the copper hair vibrating between my fingers like a metronome.
Calm down…
Think…
Breathing deliberately deeply, I let out air. Take it in again. And once more.
My hand steadies once more.
How long have I been standing here? Frozen by surprise and indecision…novelbin
A minute? Two?
Time to get the hell out of here…
Making a sharp re-entry to my room, I sling essentials in a carry-bag: wallet, tablet, passport, thatuseless phone…
Must contact Dakho…
Get a replacement…
A glance around the suite…
… Anything else important?
Clothes, I abandon. Toiletries too. It’s all just stuff. Easily replaced.
I holster my Glock, check my knives are in place in their sheaths, sling the bag over my shoulder…
… That’s it, then…
… And making a u-turn, I head for the door…
On the threshold, I pause.
Would Juliana really have stopped at that?
A hair… A warning to me…
Only that?
It doesn’t ring true.
There’s surely something else.
Torn between the urge to leave and the desire to know… I vacillate. It’s under five minutes since Imade my discovery, and everything inside screams that I should leave…
And Now…
Fuck!
I’ve got to know…
Carry-bag still slung across my shoulder, gun in hand, I pace the lounge…
… then the terrace…
… the bedroom…
… seeking… seeking what?
Whatever my first hasty charge around the apartment might have missed.
I find it in the bathroom.
Juliana… She’s consistent at least. Rigged up in the same way as when she abandoned Baxter, thelavatory seat is wired.
Hitching my pants at the knees to squat down, I peer in.
It’s an amateur job, the wiring crude, but it would still work. Lifting the seat is the trigger for theexplosion. The technique has long been used as a booby-trap in situations where, typically, theintention is not to kill, but to maim. A corpse can be buried with honours. But a companion on astretcher, carrying what’s left of his genitalia in a paper bag; that’s a drag on resources and morale.
On the other hand, the bowl, or maybe the cistern, could contain enough explosive to blow the roomapart. I’m not about to put it to the test.
Shaking my head, I leave.
I make my way down the rear stairs, calling by the laundries in the basement. Dumping my suit, arummage through the baskets produces some sort of uniform; one-piece, plain navy-blue, perhaps fora plumber or other maintenance man. Checking first that there’s no logo stitched in to link me back tothe hotel, I put it on. It’s a little short in the arm but rolling up the sleeves hides that.
Then, carry-bag back in place, whistling a merry little tune, I exit the hotel via the service entrance.
Following the side-road brings me to an alley, then another alley. Finally, I spot a shady niche. There’sspace for a dozen trash bins, but not all are taken. Ducking into the gap, I’m out of sight. One of thebins serves as a seat while I grab my breath and assemble my thoughts.
Now what?
Caught with my trousers down…
… like a complete fucking amateur…
I believed I was safely hidden behind my fake ID. Now I’m going to have to change again. When thehotel discovers ‘Harry Hughes’ has an explosive lavatory, the police are bound to investigate.
I’m still not far from the hotel. I need to get further away than this, but there’s no point running atrandom.
Somewhere to stay?
To hide?
To think…
And I’m still faced with the obvious, and unpleasant, question.
How did Juliana know where I was?
Perhaps she made the link to Antonio’s? I was eating there regularly. Was I careless? Building up ahabit I shouldn’t have?
She could have had me followed back from there? After all, I picked up on her messenger boy at therestaurant, when he was squeezing the old man for protection money.
Sauce for the goose? Sauce for the gander?
It still doesn’t feel right.
Antonio…
She wouldn’t go for him would she?
Just an innocent bystander that sold me a few meals?
Would she…?
My meandering thoughts are cut short…
Shattering noise ricochets down the alleyway, echoing and reverberating. Lids clatter on the binsaround me. The bin I’m sitting on Whumphs! under me with the shockwave and reflexively, I drop to theground, hands slamming over my ears, curling in on myself against the explosion,
Then catching up with my thoughts, I coil, springing up to dash back the way I came, towards thesource of the sound.
I’m fighting against a stream of shrieking, panicking, fleeing people. Men and women alike, somecarrying children in their headlong dash for escape. Some stopping to help others. Others simply peltaway.
And I know what they’re running from.
The blast wasn’t huge on the scale of things. But what was, only minutes ago, my hotel apartment, ishistory. So is the next apartment. A brick and plaster hole gapes where my bathroom window once
looked out. The lounge window is the same along with several windows further along.
Broken debris lies scattered all around. Glass shards like daggers, propelled three stories, down intothe unknowing crowd below, slashing and maiming as they went. Bricks, concrete and chunks ofplaster, ejected to rain down on the heads below.
People are screaming and running. Some sit, dazed, cradling wounds where the glass and metalshrapnel stabbed down. Others cough and choke, trying to clear airways of billowing dust. One womanlies still, a plastic carrier bag still clutched in her hand, but the contents burst free: tin cans and plasticbottles roll loose in the blood which pools around her,
A crazed glass jigsaw crunches under my feet, pocked with fragments of brick, cement and twistedmetal. Above me, a plume of smoke, thick and black, chimneys up out of what was my bathroom,powering skyward, flames licking at its base.
Alarms are madly ringing. People pour out from the hotel, spilling down the steps, some inbusinesswear, others in casual holiday clothes. One woman tumbles out from the door with only atowel clutched around herself. Another sits on the steps, by the prone body of a man. Arms huggedaround herself, her make-up streaked with soot and dust, she rocks to and fro.
I can only watch Hell’s drama unfolding.
I should have disarmed it…
I could have done it. There was nothing sophisticated about the lash up of wiring. A simple tug on aconnection or two, and the explosive would have been so much plasticine. But I was too fucking self-absorbed to consider the consequences of abandoning a primed bomb behind me.
The column of smoke is growing, flames rising and brightening…
How much fucking explosive did she use?
From somewhere out of sight, sirens are sounding, the wail drawing nearer.
There’s nothing I can do here. I missed my chance to help. As blue lights flash into view, I merge withthe fleeing crowd and run.
*****