While I worked I thought oft' what Robinson wanted. Whatever Kayles had told him was a mystery to me. I went back over the time I had spent with Kayles, trying to remember every word and analysing every nuance. I got nowhere at all and began to worry very much about Debbie.

I slept a little that night, but not much, and what sleep I had was shot with violent dreams which brought me up wide awake and sweating.

I was frightened of over-sleeping into the daylight hours because my preparations were not yet complete and I needed at least an hour of light, but I need not have worried I was open-eyed and alert as the sun rose.

An hour later I was ready as much as I could be. Balanced on a tie-beam in the roof was the pitcher full of water, held only in place by the spatula with which I had spread my butter. I had greased it liberally so that it would slide away easily at the tug of the string I had made from the sackcloth. The string ran across the roof space, hanging loosely on the beams to a point in the corner above my bed where it dropped close to hand. Lacking a pulley wheel to take care of the right- angle bend I had used two thumb tacks and I hoped they would hold under the strain when I pulled on the string.

The pitcher was just above the place where Leroy usually stood, and I reckoned that a weight of twenty-five pounds dropping six feet vertically on to his head would not do him much good. With Leroy out of action I was fairly confident I could take care of Robinson, especially if I could get hold of the shotgun.

Making my hand weapon had been tricky but fortunately I was aided by an existing crack in the thick pottery of the basin. Afraid of making a noise, and thankful that I had destroyed the microphone, I wrapped the basin in the bed sheet and whacked it hard with a leg I had taken from the table. It had not been difficult to dismantle the table; the wooden pegs were loose with age.

It took six blows to break that damned basin and after each one I paused to listen because I was making a considerable row. On the sixth blow I felt it go and unwrapped the bed sheet to find I had done exactly what I wanted. I had broken a wedge-shaped segment from the basin, exactly like the fortuitous weapon I had seen in that distant courtroom in England. The rim fitted snugly into the palm of my hand and the pointed end projected forward when my arm was by my side. The natural form of use would be an upward and thrusting slash.

Then, after gently pulling on the string to take up the slack I sat on the bed to wait. And wait. And wait.

The psychologists say that time is subjective, which is why watched pots never boil. I now believe them. I do not know whether it would have been better to have had a watch; all I know is that I counted time by the pace of shadows creeping across the floor infinitesimally slowly and by the measured beat of my heart.

Debbie had said there were four of them. That would be Leroy, Robinson, Kayles and the man with the pistol I did not think Debbie had counted Belle. Kayles was now dead and I reckoned that if the pitcher took care of Leroy and I tackled Robinson I would have a chance. I would have the shotgun by then and only one man to fight I did not expect trouble from Belle. The only thing which worried me was Leroy's trigger finger; if he was hit on the head very hard there might be a sudden muscular contraction, and I wanted to be out of the way when that shotgun fired.

Time went by. I looked up at the pitcher poised on the beam and worked equations in my head. Accelerating under the force of gravity it would take nearly two-thirds of a second to fall six feet, by which time it would be moving at twenty- two feet a second say, fifteen miles an hour. It might seem silly but that is what I did I worked out the damned equations. There was nothing else to do.

The door opened with a bang and the man who came in was not Leroy but the other man. He had the shotgun, though. He stood in the doorway and just looked at me. the gun at the ready. Robinson was behind him but did not come into the room.

"All right," he said.

"What did you tell Perigord?"

"I still don't know what you'reh. alk. ing about."

"I'm not going to argue," he said.

"I'm done with that. Watch him, Earl. If you have to shoot, make sure it's at his legs."

He went away. Earl closed the door and leaned his back against it, covering me with the shotgun. It was all going wrong he was in the wrong place. A break in the pattern was ruining the plan.

I said, "What did he say your name was?" My mouth was dry.

"Earl." The barrel of the shotgun lowered a fraction.

I slid sideways on the bed about a foot, going towards him.

"How much is he paying you?"

"None of your damn business."

Another foot.

"I think it is. Maybe I could pay better."

"You reckon?"

"I know." I moved up again, nearly to the end of the bed.

"Let's talk about it."

I was getting too close. He stepped sideways.

"Get back or I'll blow yo' haid off."

"Sure." I retreated up the bed to my original position.

"I'm certain I could pay better." I was cheering silently because friend Earl had been manoeuvred into the right place. I leaned back casually against the wall and felt behind me for the string.

"Like to talk about it?"

"Nope."

I groped and could not find the bloody string. The pottery knife was hidden by my body ready to be grasped by my right hand, but the string had to be tugged with my left hand, and not too obviously, either. I had to be casual and in an apparently easy posture, an appearance hard to maintain as I groped behind me.

As my fingertips touched the siring there came a scream from outside, full-throated and ending in a bubbling wail. All my nerves jumped convulsively and Earl jerked the gun warningly.

"Steady, mister!" He grinned, showing brown teeth, 'just Leroy havin' his fun. My turn next. "

Debbie screamed again, a cry full of agony.

"Christ damn you!" I whispered and got my index finger hooked around the string.

"Let's have your hands in sight," said Earl.

"Both of'em."

"Sure." I put my left hand forward, showing it to him empty but I had tugged that string.

I dived forward just as the shotgun blasted. I think Earl had expected me to move up the bed as I had before, but I went at right-angles to that expectation. My shoulder hit the ground with a hell of a thump and I rolled over, struggling to get up before he could get in a second shot. There was no second shot. As I scooped up the fallen shotgun I saw that nearly 600 foot-pounds of kinetic energy had cracked his skull as you would crack an egg with a spoon.

A fleeting backward glimpse showed the mattress of the bed ripped to pieces by the buckshot.

I had no time for sightseeing. From outside Debbie screamed again in a way that raised the hair on my neck, and there was a shout. I opened the door and nearly ran into a man I had not seen before. He looked at me in astonishment and began to raise the pistol in his right hand. I lashed out at him with my home-made knife and ripped upwards. A peculiar sound came from him as the breath was forcibly ejected from his lungs. He gagged for air and looked down at himself, then dropped the pistol and clapped both hands to his belly to stop his entrails falling out.

As he staggered to one side I ran past him, dropping the pottery blade, and tossed the shotgun from my left hand to my right. It was then I realized I had made a dreadful mistake; this was no small crowd of four people I could see a dozen, mostly men. I had a hazy impression of clapboard houses with iron roofs arranged around a dusty square, and a mongrel cur was running towards me, snapping and barking. The men were running, too, and there were angry shouts.

Someone fired a gun. I do not know where the bullet went, but I lifted the shotgun and fired back, but nothing happened because I had forgotten to pump a round into the breech. There was another shot so I ducked sideways and ran like hell for the trees I saw in the middle distance. This was no time to stop and argue I had probablytkilled two men and their buddies would not be too impressed by exhortations from Robinson to shoot at my legs.