We are in Moira’s big office. She is sitting at her desk and Ana Molina is sitting opposite her.
Carl and Kevin have a tight grip on her arms and Ana’s face is pale. Carl is wearing his knuckleduster on his right hand and Kevin has flicked open the blade of his knife. They are both grinning evilly.
Moira studies Ana calmly and says, “Ana Molina, you shouldn’t have come here. I don’t like people poking their noses into my business. You’ve made your bed and you’ll have to lie in it!”
Moira gestures to Carl and Kevin to take Ana away.
“What shall we do with her?” Carl asks.
“Take her down to the Twilight Quay and teach her a lesson she’ll never forget…” Moira says.
269I woke with a start, scarcely able to breathe. My heart was pounding and I was shaking with terror. Darkness was all round me and I had no idea where I was.
The nightmare faded slowly and my breathing and heart rate became calmer. I noticed that the right-hand side of my face was unusually cold and I had a dreadful headache.
The cause of the cold proved to be a rubber bag filled with ice pressed against my cheek. I moved the bag and carefully probed under my fur with my fingers. There was a painful swelling running from my jaw up to my forehead. I couldn’t open that eye and I had a loose tooth. A stream of unpleasant images flashed quickly through my mind… blinding light, screaming voices, flushed faces, Bernie…
All of a sudden I knew exactly where I was. I was lying, covered with a blanket, on the mattress down in my cellar. That meant the boxing match was over.
A warm sense of relief flowed slowly through my body.
I slipped in and out of a restless sleep. The sounds of music and raucous voices could still be heard as the grey light of dawn filtered in through the barred window. The Hogmanay party was still going on.
I suddenly had a sense that I wasn’t alone. I carefully raised 270my head and tried to focus my one, undamaged eye. I picked out a big, dark figure sitting leaning against the wall by the door. It was Bernie.
We looked at one another and then he lowered his eyes.
I realized that it must have been Bernie who had carried me here. And that he was the one who had covered me up and placed the ice pack on my injured face. No one else in the house would have done that. And now he was sitting there keeping watch over me.
I shut my eyes and went back to sleep.
My wounds healed, slowly though, and I had to stay in bed for over a week. During that time, I thought a great deal about the nightmare I’d had just before regaining consciousness after the boxing match. The nightmare was a warning. Ana and Signor Fidardo hadn’t heard from the Chief and me since we left Lisbon and they would no doubt be starting to worry. And if Ana became sufficiently anxious, she might well take it into her head to come to Glasgow. After all, a couple of years earlier she’d travelled halfway round the world to search for me when I disappeared in India.
And what if Ana actually managed to find me here with Moira and her gang of crooks? It wasn’t beyond the bounds 271of possibility that it could turn out as badly as in my nightmare.
So, what was I to do?
I didn’t have to spend too long thinking about it: I had to come up with some way of sending a message to Ana and Signor Fidardo to allay their concerns. If they heard that everything was going well for the Chief and me, Ana wouldn’t come looking for us.
Bernie brought me food three times a day. He didn’t speak at all during his visits and he avoided meeting my eye. But he always stayed longer than was strictly necessary. Sometimes he would sit for a while, his back against the wall at the other end of my cellar. At other times he just stood there and stared at the floor.
I suspected there was something Bernie wanted to say to me, but for some reason he couldn’t get it out. One evening, though, I decided to give him a hand. I got out of bed, walked across the room and sat down beside him.
After we’d been sitting for a few minutes, he spoke to me in a quiet, hoarse voice. “I didn’t want to hit you.”
I nodded. I knew that already.
“Moira… She said I had to,” Bernie said. 272
I knew that, too, so I nodded again.
Bernie turned in my direction. “Can you forgive me?”
I nodded for the third time.
Bernie’s shoulders relaxed a bit and he breathed a long sigh of relief. It was as if he was suddenly being freed from an enormous burden.
We sat together in silence, side by side. I was becoming more and more drowsy and was already half asleep when Bernie stood up and helped me to my feet. He took me over to my mattress and I lay down and crept under the covers. Before I fell asleep, I heard Bernie close the door quietly behind him as he left.
My headache eased bit by bit, and one morning I noticed I could open my eye just a little. It came as a great relief to realize that my vision hadn’t been damaged.
I no longer felt I could just lie there in my sick bed and do nothing. When Bernie brought me breakfast the following morning, I was already up and about in order to show him I was fit to start work again. He looked pleased, unlike the rest of the gang who didn’t even seem to have noticed that I’d been lying injured in my bed since New Year. But that suited me: the less attention the thugs paid to my activities, the better. 273
The day being dry and windless, Flintheart thought it was an opportunity for Bernie and me to light a bonfire out in the backyard and burn a load of unsellable, old clothes. We were just about to carry a pile of moth-eaten trousers to the fire when Kevin came rushing down, out of breath. He told Flintheart to shut the shop and fetch Skinflint. The whole gang was to meet together in Moira’s office without delay.
“What’s up?” Flintheart wondered.
There was a tremor on Kevin’s worm-like lips when he answered, “Tommy Tarantello is on his way here!”
Flintheart’s hand covered her mouth. She was horrified. “Oh, Mother of God,” she groaned. “This will be the end of us!”
Kevin disappeared rapidly the way he’d come. He shouted back over his shoulder, “Don’t forget your pistol! And tell Skinflint to bring his shotgun!”
I regretted not having stayed down in my cellar that morning.