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across it with a sheet thrown over to cover her from the waist. It was nothing to do with his will, it was automatic, that he saw the nakedness of her breasts - and would have his response to their size and shape as part of what he felt when he remembered – before he realised what the stain on the sheet was at the junction of her parted thighs. In the stillness of her face only her eyes moved watching Kujavia.
    'Miss Palamas had a job to do,' the ugly little man explained.
    'She was supposed to be very good. I don't like monkeys, so I didn't care how good she was. And she wasn't one of my girls. And then she's not good after all. So now she'll be one of my girls. Even if I don't like monkeys . '
    He picked a bottle up from the table. It was a wine bottle and the long neck stood out from his fist. At the sight of it, the girl whimpered.
    'Even a monkey can learn.' He leaned on the bed with one hand and bent over her. 'Because she wasn't one of my girls then, I teach a little lesson. Only have a few friends in and make some fun for them . '
     
    Malcolm had risked himself for this girl before . On the Saturday night with the two plainclothes policemen, 'lovers' quarrel? ‘You go home , sir . .. You're seeing the young lady home? Know her well, do you? . . What close dose the .. . lady live in along there? The number? What's the name on the door? ... You leave the young lady to us. We'll see her home .. . Don't give us a hard time .. . sir!’
    ‘ Joe! He's had enough! He's had enough! Knock it off you daft bugger!'
    Clockwork man, he had marched down the incline, defying them; they couldn't treat a man who had come from one of Blair Heathers' parties as if he was nobody. 'I'll see the young lady home,' he had said. The younger man , thin faced, sharp nosed, had watched him and grinned. The older one, beefy and smelling of drink, had stared at the girl, smacking his lips as if tasting something sweet. It had been the young one who had used his fists and then his feet, shoe caps like black gleaming hands that flew at him as he curled tight, tight, until everything that was black flowed together and the voices stopped.
    – This is my chance, he would tell Murray. Don't spoil it for me.
    It was the decisive moment of his life; but it did not feel as he lived it that he had any kind of choice at all. He had thought of himself as greedy and had dramatised it to himself as an adventurer's greed for life and possessions. In this squalid place, he learned that his greediest need was for something as shabby and uncertain as security.
    – This is my chance.
    But he tried.
     
    'Mr Heathers would never tell you to do anything like that.' Kujavia did not deny it 'Nobody tells me what to do,' touching his chest with the tips of his fingers. 'Mister Heathers is a rich man. But there isn't anything I don't know about women.' He showed his yellow teeth in a smile. 'Next time I break it off inside her.'
    The fat woman blocked the lobby. She did not move aside and for a sick instant he thought she was trying to stop him from leaving. As he squeezed past, she nudged him with her belly.
    'I thought you were going to pay,' she said.
    When he got outside, there was no sign of the car. In his mind , ideas plaited like colours making one thing out of light: he had not been afraid of Kujavia; there had been too much at stake; the girl, the poor girl; he was not a coward; he was a coward; not afraid of being hurt himself, afraid of sharing in what Kujavia might do .. . anything you want, she had said; the girl, the poor naked girl. Out of the muddle, a strange idea; Irene and I have made a world in which Kujavia can exist.
    Irene and I .. .
    As he walked the long street among the watchful children, he kept expecting the car to appear until it occurred to him that the driver had never intended to wait.
     

 
    4 Tasting Blood
     
     
    WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29 TH 1988
     
    In the car, Blair Heathers was unwise enough to close his eyes. Blood in his