THE PERFECT KILL by A. J. Quinnell Read Free Book Online Page A

front of them were the twelve inch square wooden block, the small silvery surgeon’s saw, the syringe, the electric cauterising iron, the gauze and the bandages. Creasy worked swiftly and with great expertise. He laid the severed finger on the block, cauterised the bleeding stump, applied some ointment and gauze, and then bandaged the whole hand.
    Fromthe black bag he took out a small heavy metal box and opened it. A white vapour erupted. He placed the finger into the box pushing it down into the dry ice and closed it tight. As he packed everything away he continued in the same low silky voice.
    “You ever use my name again, Joe, I know where to find you…every hole, every pit, every sleazy little swamp, even if you are paying a thousand bucks a night for it.”
    The snake sat totally immobile, looking down at his bandaged hand. He said, “I thought you were dead…everyone thought you were dead.”
    “I am, Joe, and if anyone ever finds out differently you will be also.”
    He walked into the bedroom and came back out carrying the wad of money. The snake had not moved a millimetre. Creasy counted off a hundred of the bills and laid them in front of Rawlings.
    “Ten thousand bucks, Joe…Tap City Money, Joe…next time play in a different poker game.”
    Creasy picked up the bag and let himself out into the corridor.

Chapter
06
    Michael Said explored the house. He roamed around it as though he owned it. It was a very special feeling. He knew that it had been designed by Creasy’s wife Nadia and that for two years she had overseen the construction of the new wing and the reconstruction of the old part. All the rooms were large with high, arched ceilings. Creasy was a man who liked space.
    Although the construction was in the old manner using huge limestone slabs cut from the local quarry, the windows were not usual. They were rectangular and very large and from every room a different vista opened up over the island.
    He walked across a small patio into a bedroom. It had its own bathroom and from its windows he could see the lighthouse at Ghasri and out across the open sea. He knew that in about eight weeks it would be the place where he would sleep.
    On the wall hung two portraits painted in oil. One was of Nadia, the other of Julia aged about two. Creasy had shown him the two paintings and had said, “The woman who’s coming only represents a practicality and a convenience. Nadia and Julia will be your family.”
    He stood looking at the paintings for a long time, then he walked into the bathroom. It was also overly large; in one corner was a shower with a huge old copper showerhead. In another corner was a high wooden bathtub. The toilet was in a separate cubicle.
    He remembered during one of his conversations with Creasy how the man had told him of his first visit to Japan. He had been with a Japanese woman in a typical country inn. She had filled the wooden bathtub while he undressed. He had walked into the bathroom and climbed into the tub. The girl had been horrified.
    “How come you wash in your own dirt?” she asked him. “A tub is only for soaking afterwards,” and she had made him climb out and sit on a small wooden stool. She had emptied and refilled the tub, and while it filled she had poured small buckets of water over him and washed him as he sat on the stool and shampooed his hair. Then they had both climbed into the steaming tub and soaked for half an hour.
    Creasy had explained that since this was the first house he had ever owned, all the three bathrooms would be Japanese style. First a shower, then a soak.
    “Did Nadia used to wash you?” the boy had asked. Creasy had nodded sombrely, “Yes, always. It was a ritual. And she used to shampoo my hair.”
    The boy walked out to the front of the house and dived into the pool. Very steadily he swam for sixty lengths. At the end his muscles ached. But by the time the man came back, he would be swimming more than a hundred lengths. By then, he would