Pop Goes the Weasel | страница 129

She was just like all the others. Sinful, dirty and cheap. How many had he killed now? Seven? Eight? And how many had fought back – really fought back? None. This one had been tougher than most but like all the others she knew. She knew that she was fallen – that she had given away any chance of salvation thanks to her own depravity – and that’s why they were happy when he relieved them of their suffering. Did they know or care that they were going straight to Hell?

He shuddered to a finish. Closing his eyes, he savoured the moment. The tension that had been building up within him week upon week was already starting to dissipate. Soon he would feel that all-pervading calm that was so rare but so precious to him.

He opened his eyes, hoping to indulge himself with one last look at her bloodless face. But as soon as he did so, he froze.

Her eyes were open. And she was looking straight at him.

Next to her was her bag. And in her right hand was a very large knife.

‘Gówno!’

The knife punctured his face with a sickening crunch. He blacked out and within less than a minute Wojciech Adamik was dead.

She was on to him in a flash. As she put her key in the lock, she felt him coming up fast behind her. Spinning, she grabbed the outstretched arm, swinging her attacker hard into the wall, whilst raising the key in her hand to eye level. She could blind her assailant in a second if she had to.

It was Jake. Breathless, panting, Helen dropped her arm to her side.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’

Jake could hardly speak, winded by his collision with the hard brick wall, but eventually he said:

‘Waiting for you.’

‘Why couldn’t you ring like any normal person? Or wait downstairs?’

‘I’ve tried ringing you, Helen. You know I have – I’ve left… what… five, six messages? You’ve not responded to any of them.’

His raised voice echoed round the stairwell of the building. Downstairs, Jason had just crashed through the front door, with another young nurse in tow, so Helen quickly slipped the key in the lock and pushed Jake inside her flat.

‘I was worried. I thought something might have happened to you. Then I thought I must have done something wrong. What’s going on?’

Jake was now in her front room, surrounded by her books and journals. It felt profoundly odd to have him in her space, the context somehow all wrong.

‘Emilia Garanita knows about us. She knows what I come to you for and she is threatening to expose me in the press.’