THE PERFECT KILL Read Online Free PDF Page A

lagers. At one stage the big American had gone to the kitchen and returned with a large plate. On it were thin strips of dried beef.
    He said, “In America we call it “jerky” but I learned to make it in Rhodesia.” He glanced at the boy, “Do you know what Rhodesia is called now?”
    “Zimbabwe,” the boy replied instantly.
    The man’s head nodded in approval. He munched a strip of beef and said, “There they call it biltong, and there they make it from game, usually gazelle. It’s heavily salted and then hung in the sun for several days. It keeps for years. A man can survive on ten pounds of biltong for several weeks.” He had pointed with his chin towards the village.
    “I have to use beef, which I get from John the butcher. Try some.”
    The boy picked up a piece of meat and put it in his mouth. It tasted like leather. He chewed vigorously. It tasted like salty leather.
    He chewed some more and began to taste the meat. He decided it was delicious. Within fifteen minutes the plate had been cleared.
    They had talked. The American had asked many questions. The boy realised now that he had been probing his mind. At the house he had not noticed it. He had answered the questions easily, without difficulty. After the second beer, he was relaxed enough to say the words he had been rehearsing all the way up the hill.
    Looking straight into the big man’s eyes, he asked, “What do I call you?”
    The man had smiled slightly. “Creasy,” he said. “Drop the “Mr”; or by my nickname. You know what that is?”
    The boy had nodded and said very simply, “Uomo, I want to tell you how sorry I am about your wife and daughter. We are all sorry. She used to bring presents to the orphanage at Christmas and she used to bring special food sometimes. Good cuts of meat, I think from her father’s farm, and lots of fruit. We all miss her.”
    He was still looking into the man’s eyes. They had showed no emotion. Heavy-lidded, almost drowsy, they had just stared back at the boy. Then he had nodded, stood up and gone into the kitchen to fetch two more lagers.
    They had talked on as the sun dipped away behind them. The boy had felt relaxed enough to ask questions of his own. The first was, “How did you get the scars, Uomo?”
    The man shrugged. “In several wars.”
    “Where?”
    “All over. Africa, North, South and West. Asia, the Middle East. All over.”
    The boy felt emboldened.
    “Were you a mercenary?” he asked.
    “Anyone who works for money is a mercenary.”
    “Have you killed many people?”
    There was a long silence. The man was looking out, over the undulations and the villages of Gozo, across the blue waters, and over Comino and Malta.
    Very quietly, he gave the standard reply, “I can’t remember.”
    Then Creasy had stood up, saying, “Can you swim?”
    “Of course.”
    “Let’s go then.”
    “But I didn’t bring my trunks.”
    The American had smiled, “You don’t need any, but if you’re shy, swim in your underpants.”
    The boy had taken off all his clothes. They swam together. The pool was forty feet long. At one point the man had said, “I’ll race you two lengths.”
    The boy was a good swimmer and fast, but he lost by six feet.
    As he clung to the edge of the pool, he gasped, “You are strong, Uomo.”
    The man had smiled, “I swim a hundred lengths every morning…It’s the best exercise a man can get.”
    When the boy was leaving, the man had said to him at the gate in a low and serious voice, “I will talk to you again, Michael. In a couple of days. After that, you can come up here any time you want. Use the pool, help yourself to a lager…but you must always come alone.” The boy said nothing. Halfway down, he had stopped and looked back up at the house. He had stood there for many minutes, totally still, just looking. Then he had continued down to the village.

Chapter 04
    Father Manuel Zerafa had not slept well. Just before he had gone to bed in his sparse, simple room, a