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asked him.
    'Don't tell me . . .'
    'He was my friend.'
    'Ah, fuck it, Dennis. It was just business. Like it always is. Nothing personal.'
    'Well, this is personal. Now tell me everything you know about Les Pope and the people behind that shooting, and don't leave a single thing out, or the first bullet'll be in your kneecap.'
    He sighed loudly and nodded his assent. Then he turned away slightly, dropped the bottles, and quick as a flash he was pulling a throwing knife from beneath the ankle of his jeans. With astonishing speed he swung round to take aim, and I cursed. It had never occurred to me that he'd be armed, but then he wasn't called Slippery Billy for nothing. This bastard didn't know the meaning of the word defeat, and I felt a sudden heartfelt admiration for him, coupled with the unwelcome knowledge that in many ways there really wasn't that much difference between us.
    Then I started firing. The first bullet caught him in the shoulder, knocking him sideways before he could release the knife. The second missed, I think, while the third and fourth struck him in the upper back as he continued to spin round. He fell to his knees and tried to face me again, still holding on to the knife, and once again I got that tiny twinge of doubt that I'd be able to finish him off. But perhaps I was just deluding myself, because a moment laterI aimed the gun at his head and pulled the trigger twice more.
    His body bucked sharply as the bullets struck him just below his left eye, but somehow he managed to retain his kneeling position, holding it for what seemed like an awfully long time before slowly, almost casually, he toppled onto his side.
    I waited a few moments just to make sure that his luck had finally run out, then looked behind me to check that no one had heard anything (there was no one there, so I assumed they hadn't), before finally approaching the body. Blood ran in thin, uneven lines down the side of his face and onto his neck, but his eyes were closed and he looked peaceful, as the newly dead do. Standing there watching him, I reasoned that he had killed at least twice for no other reason than money (one of his victims being a police officer and my friend), and wouldn't have lost a second's sleep if the boot was on the other foot and he'd been the one shooting me. So I really had nothing to feel guilty about. But I wasn't entirely convinced. It didn't make me feel any better that I then used the camera to take half a dozen photos of his corpse, as per our contract, before searching his clothes until I found his mobile, the key to his room and the false passport he was carrying, all of which I pocketed in my jeans. I finally concluded matters by putting on a pair of surgical gloves, wiping the Browning's handle and picking up all the loose cartridges. Ithen grabbed Slippery by the shoulders and hauled him deeper into the undergrowth. Thankfully, he was lighter than I'd been expecting, because there was still some way for him to go before we hit his final resting place.
    I dragged his body fifty yards in all, the path quickly giving way to a thick wall of bushes and trees, and I was hot and panting when we finally came to the edge of the ravine. The drop here was almost sheer and ran some five hundred feet into the tree-carpeted valley below.
    I'd chosen this spot because the valley was pretty much inaccessible to people. There was always the chance that a resourceful Mangyan tribesman had somehow found a way in and was nurturing a vegetable plot there, but that was a risk anywhere on the island. The chances were that the body would lie undiscovered for months or even years, and if the remains were one day found, it was unlikely the police would be able to identify them as what was left of Billy West, and I don't suppose they'd be too worried about it either, even with the bullet holes in his skull. They'd probably conclude that it was a local who'd fallen foul of the NPA, the Marxist rebels cum anti-drugs vigilantes who