The meanest Flood

there, only a mess of nerves and tissue in convulsion over the loss of central command. When she was still he dropped the latch on the door and went to the bathroom. There were splatters of blood on his forearms and another on his forehead and his right thigh. He washed himself clean and got back into his clothes. He placed the Norwegian cap on his head and pushed it forward from the back. Reminded him of Bogey in The African Queen, one of his mother’s favourites.
    He washed the hatchet and placed it in the inside pocket of his overcoat.
    He put the plugs in the bath and the wash-basin, blocked the overflows and turned on the taps. He turned on the shower as an after-thought.
    He stepped over Holly Andersen’s body on his way out and took the steps down to the street. He was sure it was all over. He would go back to the hotel and make arrangements to check out. Go back to England and normality. Back to Jody.
    When Sam Turner’s lackey had attacked him, flinging him back against the wall of a building, Danny had acted instinctively. There was no time for premeditation. He had reached for the hatchet and used it. He’d seen the young man rolling over on the pavement and grabbed his binoculars and made his getaway as quickly as possible.
    Couldn’t resist returning later, though, in time to catch the detective scrambling over the rooftops like the insect? he was.
    The plane taxied forward, hesitated as though gathering enough will-power and courage before flinging itself down the runway like a charging rhino. Danny closed his eyes. He loved planes. Had always been fascinated by flying. The trip to Thailand had been one of the high spots of his life. He had relished flying there and back almost as much as he had delighted in his experiences in Bangkok and the Chao Phraya River basin. Danny couldn’t understand people who were frightened of flying. He had been amazed to discover that there were psychologists who specialized in aerophobia and acrophobia, actually made a living out of it. In reality the sky was a safer place to be than the roads or the high seas. If he wasn’t a man he would choose to be a bird, an eagle or an albatross with all the power and soaring majesty of wingspan and speed. A solitary predator with the ability to spot a trembling whisker from a mile in the sky and the dexterity and velocity to take it with talon and beak before the creature could sigh.
    There was a young man towards the front of the cabin who had tried to drink himself senseless and failed. He was big, broad-shouldered and bearded, and was wearing an orange shirt and baggy trousers. His voice, when he spoke to himself or one of the stewardesses, was a few decibels above the acceptable and his sentences were liberally laced with expletives.
    The other passengers were quieter than normal, each of them wondering if the man was going to cause real trouble, perhaps degenerate into air-rage.
    ‘Gimme a drink,’ he said to the stewardess.
    ‘In a moment, sir.’ She went forward, through first-class.
    ‘Bitch!’ he shouted after her. ‘Give a man a drink.’ He got to his feet and twisted around, looking towards the rear of the plane. ‘Fucking drink, here,’ he said, before collapsing back into his seat.
    Mancunian accent, Danny decided. And the man was older than he’d first thought. Thirty-five, thirty-six, with a liver maybe fifteen years older.
    The stewardess returned and the man was on his feet again. He lurched over his fellow passenger to grab her but she leaped out of reach. ‘Where’s my drink?’ he said.
    ‘If you wait a minute the Captain will come and talk to you,’ she told him.
    ‘Don’t wanna Capt’n, need a fucking drink.’ He extricated himself from the man he had fallen over and followed the stewardess towards the rear of the plane. She stood her ground a couple of seats in front of Danny.
    ‘I think it would be better if you returned to your seat, sir,’ she said. ‘You’re disturbing the other passengers.’
    ‘To hell with them - Southern slapheads. Open the door, let ’em all get sucked out.’ He made another grab for her but she took a couple of steps back.
    ‘I really can’t serve you anything at all if you’re not in your seat, sir.’
    ‘Lying bitch! I was in my seat to start with.’ He appealed to Danny and the Asian woman sitting next to him. ‘Did I get a drink when I was in my seat?’
    The Asian woman said he should do what the stewardess told him and go back to his