Black Out Read Online Free PDF Page B

days. You’ll be fine. When did the stitches come out?’
    ‘Three days ago.’
    ‘Then you shouldn’t worry. What you should worry about is why you let yourself get locked up alone in a room with a lunatic axeman.’
    Kolankiewicz took a small brown bottle off the shelf above the sink, splashed a little of its contents over a swab and bathed the four-inch scar.
    ‘This guy,’ he went on. ‘The one in the papers. Killed his good lady’s paramour. Chopped off two of the postman’s fingers. Brokethe wrist of a constable. And you walk into his house and tell him to give himself up. You’re crazy! This Oxbridge—’
    ‘Uxbridge,’ said Troy.
    ‘This Uxbridge axeman could have killed you.’
    Kolankiewicz rolled down Troy’s shirtsleeve and fastened the button at the cuff in a gesture that was curiously paternal.
    ‘No – I don’t think so.’
    ‘Always the fucking hero.’
    ‘Heroics has nothing to do with it. It was all down to knowing the man.’
    ‘Psychology?’
    ‘If you like.’
    ‘Fucking guesswork I’d call it.’
    ‘Have it your own way. But once he’d nicked me—’
    ‘Nicked. Troy, you’re full of crap.’
    ‘Nicked me! – it was all over. He got what he wanted. He’d seen blood. The sight of blood was the culmination for him – it satisfied and defused him. After that it was a matter of simply sitting there and talking him out. He wasn’t going to chop me into pieces. The only person he was ever going to chop into pieces was his wife’s lover.’
    ‘And while you – Mr Smartyarse – were talking him out, where was the axe?’
    ‘On the floor between us.’
    ‘And what did you do? Sit there with a home-made tourniquet on, hoping he’d surrender before you bled to death?’
    ‘The old school tie. First use I’ve ever found for it.’
    Kolankiewicz thrust the bottle at him. ‘Twice a day till the soreness goes. Now scram. I give you my report as soon as I can.’

§ 8
    The gas fire in Troy’s office sputtered at him and refused the match. All over London, gas-holders sat squat on the skyline like gigantic gibuses. One of them must have been hit in last night’s raid, Troythought. He twisted the tap on and off in the hope of jerking the fire into life. He heard the soft click of the door opening and looked up to see the Squad Commander, Superintendent Onions. Onions leaned on the edge of Troy’s desk and folded his arms.
    ‘Been asking for you,’ he said softly in his Rochdale baritone.
    Troy stood up and flicked the dust off his trousers and wondered if this was a reprimand. Onions was a bull of a man – five foot nine of packed muscle – with a bull’s unpredictability, stubbornness and unprepossessing appearance. Troy had never been certain of his age, but guessed at fifty – the hair, long since grey, was ruthlessly clipped at the back and sides, leaving the stubble of a crewcut along the top of his head – the bright blue eyes still burned brightly in the lined face. Onions looked sharp and bullet-headed, the intensity of his gaze at odds with his sheer bulk and with his almost thoughtless appearance. He dressed habitually in the manner of the older generation; a heavy double-breasted suit in a dull shade of oxblood enlivened only by a thin scarlet stripe and wonderfully counter-pointed by regulation-issue black Metropolitan Police boots. It was, Troy reflected, the kind of suit Hitler favoured, but for the fact that the Führer seemed to have frequent difficulty finding the matching trousers first thing in the morning. Troy knew for a fact that in the complexity of Onions’s nature there lay an element of insecurity – he wore both belt and braces. Onions it had been who’d rescued Troy from Leman Street and made him a sergeant. His advocacy of Troy had brought Troy to the brink of an early inspectorship. It was expected any day. But the relationship could be fractious. Outguessing Onions was pointless. Most of the time, in the privacy of his office or