Presently Robinson came back. He looked at me sitting on the bed, and said, "Come to the window and see what I have for you."

"The only favour I want from you is to release my wife."

"I'm afraid not," he said.

"Not for the moment. But come here, Mangan, and watch."

I joined him at the window and the man with the pistol moved directly behind me, standing about six feet away. There was nothing to be seen outside that was new, just the trees and hot sunlight. Then Leroy came into view with another man. They were both laughing.

"Kayles!" I said hoarsely.

"Yes, Kayles," said Robinson.

Leroy was still carrying the shotgun. He stooped to tie the lace of his shoe, gesturing for Kayles to carry on. He let Kayles get ten feet ahead and then shot him in the back from his kneeling position.

He shot again, the two reports coming so closely together that they sounded as one, and Kayles pitched forward violently to lie in a crumpled heap.

"There," said Robinson.

"The murderer of your family has been executed."

I looked at Kayles and saw that Robinson was right buckshot does terrible things to a man's body. Kayles had been ripped open and his spine blown out. A pool of blood was soaking into the sandy earth.

It had happened so suddenly and unexpectedly that I was numbed. Leroy walked to Kayles's body and stirred it with his foot, then he reloaded the shotgun and walked back the way he had come and so out of sight.

"It was not done entirely for your benefit," said Robinson.

"From being an asset Kayles had become a liability. Anyone connected with me who has his photograph on the walls of police stations is dangerous." He paused.

"Of course, in a sense '59 the demonstration was for your benefit. An example it could happen to you ' I looked out at the body ofK-ayles and said, " I think you're quite mad. " ^ " Nor mad just careful. Now you are going to tell me what I want to know. How did you get wind of what I am up to, and how much have you told Perigord? "

"I've told the police nothing, except about Kayles," I said.

"I know nothing at all about what other crazy ideas you might have. I know nothing about you, and I wish I knew less."

"So do I believe you?" he mused.

"I think not. I can't trust you to be honest with me. So what to do about it? I could operate on you with a blunt knife, but you could be stubborn. You could even know nothing, as you say, so the exercise would be futile. Even if your wife saw the operation with the blunt knife there would be no profit in it. You see, I believe she knows nothing and so torturing you could not induce her to speak the truth. In fact, anything she might say I would discount as a lie to save you."

I said nothing. My mouth was dry and parched because I knew what was coming and dreaded it.

Robinson spoke in tones of remote objectivity, building up his ramshackle structure of crazy logic.

"No," he said.

"We can discard that, so what is left? Mrs. Mangan is left, of course. Judging from the touching scene of reconciliation this morning it is quite possible that you still have an attachment for her. So, we operate on Mrs. Mangan with a blunt knife or its equivalent. Women have soft bodies, Mr. Mangan. I think you will speak truly of what you know."

I nearly went for him then and there, but the gunman said sharply, "Don't!" and I recoiled from the gun.

"You son of a bitch!" I said, raging.

"You utter bastard!"

Robinson waved his hand.

"No compliments, I beg of you. You will have time to think of this to sleep on it. I regret we can waste no more good food on you. But that is all for the best the digestion of food draws blood from the brain and impedes the thought processes. I want you in a condition in 160 which you think hard and straight, Mr. Mangan. I will ask you more questions tomorrow."

He went out, followed by the gunman, and the door closed and clicked locked, leaving me in such despair as I had never known in my life.

The first thing I did when I had recovered the power of purposive thought was to find and rip out that damned microphone. A futile gesture, of course, because it had already fulfilled Robinson's purpose. It was not even very well hidden, not nearly as subtle as any of Rodriguez's gadgets. It was an ordinary microphone such as comes with any standard tape recorder and was up in the rafters taped to a tie-beam, and the wire led through a small hole in the roof.

Not much sense in it, but it gave me savage satisfaction in the smashing of it.

As I hung from the tie-beam, my feet dangling above the floor preparatory to dropping, I looked at the door at the end of the room and then at the roof above it. My first thought was that if I was up in the roof when Leroy came in I might drop something on to his head.

That idea was discarded quickly because I had seen that every time he entered he had swung the door wide so that it lay against the wall.

That way he made sure that, if I was not in sight, then I would not be hiding behind the door. If he did not see me in that bare room he would know that the only place I could he was up in the roof, and he would take the appropriate nasty action.

If there was anyone watching what I did next he would have thought I had gone around the bend. 1 stood with my back to the door, imitating the action of a tiger the tiger being Leroy. I had no illusions about him; he was as deadly as any tiger possibly more dangerous than Robinson. I do not think that Robinson was the quintessential man of action; he was more the cerebral type and thought too much about his actions. Leroy, however vacant in the head, would act automatically on the necessity for action.

So I imitated Leroy coming in. He booted the door wide open; I had to imagine that bit. The door swung and slammed against the wall. Leroy looked inside and made sure I was on the bed.

Satisfied he stepped inside, fixing me with the shotgun. I stood, cradling an imaginary shotgun, looking at an imaginary me on the bed.

Immediately behind came Robinson. In order that he could enter I had to cease blocking the doorway, so I took a step sideways, still holding the gun on the bed. That was what Leroy had done every time the perfect bodyguard. I looked above my head towards the roof and was perfectly satisfied with what I saw.

Then I studied the water pitcher and basin. I had seen a piece of a similar basin before. As part of my education I had studied the English legal system and, on one Long Vacation, I had taken the opportunity of attending a Crown Court to see what went on. There had been a case of a brawl in a seamen's hostel, the charge being attempted murder. I could still visualize the notes I took. A doctor was giving evidence:

Prosecutor: Now, Doctor, tell me; how many pints of blood did you transfuse into this young man?

Doctor: Nine pints in the course of thirty hours.

Prosecutor: Is that not a great quantity of blood?

Doctor: Indeed, it is.

Judge (breaking in): How many pints of blood are there in a man?

Doctor: I would say that this man, taking into account his vveight and build, would have eight pints of blood in him.

Judge: And you say you transfused nine pints. Surely, the blood must have been coming out of him faster than you were putting it in?

Doctor (laconically): It was.

The weapon used had been a pie-shaped fragment of such a basin as this, broken in the course of the brawl, picked up at random, and used viciously. It had been as sharp as a razor.

I next turned my attention to the window curtain, a mere flap of sackcloth. I felt the coarse weave and decided it would serve well.

It was held in place by thumb tacks which would also be useful, so I ripped it away and spent the rest of the daylight hours separating the fibres rather like a nineteenth- century convict picking oakum.