Murderous by David Hickson (best ereader for comics .txt) 📕

above his thigh muscles, and a rugby shirt with a club logo on the chest. He strode towards us angrily, his limbs twitching with excess energy.

Roelof climbed out of the jeep almost before we’d rolled to a stop, and called out to Hendrik, but the blown-up rugby player was not looking at Roelof. He was looking at me. I interpreted the look of rage on his puce face just seconds before his right fist struck out towards me. I pulled back sharply and bent my knees so that his fist swung through the air, but it happened so quickly that my balance was thrown and I fell back against the sharp edge of the jeep’s open door which jabbed at my kidneys like a blade. The pain caused an involuntary twist, and Hendrik’s left fist came up and struck my cheekbone a crushing blow. It sent a spasm of pain through my skull and my right eye filled with blood. I allowed the momentum of the blow to twist me around and my shoulder deflected Hendrik’s next blow. I caught a blurred image of Kenneth sitting immobile in the back of the jeep, still holding the shotgun as if he was trying to decide which of us to shoot.

Distance becomes difficult to gauge with only one eye, but I caught Hendrik’s fist as it glanced off my shoulder. It was as big as a child’s head, and my grip slipped, but I brought my other hand up and held his fist in both hands. I twisted his fist about and used the force of his blow to extend him towards me. His big shoulders made him top-heavy, and he’d planted his feet laterally because he’d seen me as a static target, which proved to be a mistake. I slid under his shoulders as he fell forward, and secured my grip on his wrist, pulling the arm back and under him so that his head dropped against the open door of the jeep with a crunch, and I felt the pop as the tendon attaching the supraspinatus muscle to the humerus at the shoulder was torn under the strain.

Hendrik emitted a howl of pain. I released his wrist, and he sprawled onto the dusty ground.

“What the fuck?” he screamed as he writhed with pain. “You’ve broken my arm. What the fuck?”

“It’s not broken,” I said. “The tendon has torn, but the bones are fine.” I looked up to see Roelof watching me in horror. Kenneth was standing up in the back of the jeep, pointing the shotgun at me. Piet and Billy were watching in stunned silence from beyond Kenneth.

Chandler emerged from the reception area like a gliding pillar of ice, his crisp linen suit with open-neck silk shirt and cropped white hair exuding a sense of cool tranquillity.

“What have you done, Freddy?” he asked in a calm voice.

I held out a hand to help Hendrik to his feet, but he shied away from it as if I was launching a fresh attack. He cradled the damaged arm with his other, and rose onto his knees, where he opened his mouth and wailed with pain. The whole thing seemed a little overdone to me, but the others appeared moved by the performance and the look of horror on Roelof’s face deepened. Several staff members emerged from the reception area, as if answering the animal call of their master, and they stood in a ring around the howling Hendrik and his brutal assailant. Hendrik was bleeding from a cut on his forehead, which made the situation look worse than it was. When he’d drawn a rasping breath and seemed to be done with the howling part of the performance, he turned to me and spat to clear his mouth of the blood.

“Touch my woman again and I’ll fucking kill you,” he said.

“Oh Freddy,” said Chandler with evident disappointment, although I detected some relief mixed in with it.

There were several objections I could have made to Hendrik’s statement. Did Melissa really belong to him? And strictly speaking, had I touched her? Admittedly, that was a grey area. And his closing threat weakened his status as victim. But I opened my hands like an innocent man.

“I would never think of it,” I said, although I confess the thought of touching Melissa had lingered for a moment after she had floated down the terrace the night before.

“She’s got marks all over her backside,” Hendrik said. “What the fuck did you do? Stick pins into her?”

Chandler raised a hand as if he was about to impart a benediction.

“Oh … my … goodness,” he said with gentle emphasis on each syllable. It had the desired effect, and everyone turned to him, even the sobbing Hendrik.

“There has been a terrible misunderstanding,” said Chandler. “You are thinking perhaps that the brief conversation I had with your lovely fiancée on the terrace last night, might have been Freddy up to no good?”

Doubt appeared behind the tears in Hendrik’s pink eyes.

“She smells of his cigarettes,” he complained, but Chandler smiled and allowed himself a small laugh.

“My mistake again,” he said. “Freddy was kind enough to leave me with a cigarette that I indulged in. I should have been more careful and not stood upwind of your beautiful bride-to-be.”

Hendrik looked as if he had other objections to Chandler’s flimsy story, but they weren’t coming through clearly enough for him to vocalise.

“Get off my land,” said Hendrik. “All of you.”

“Let’s get you on your feet,” said Chandler. “We’ll get a doctor to give you the once over. Bill me for it, will you, Roelof? I insist. X-rays, full body scans, blood tests, do the whole thing. It is absolutely unacceptable what Freddy has done.”

He glared at me, and the crowd swung round to see my return. I bowed my head and mumbled an apology.

“Get your things,” said Chandler, “and for goodness’ sake change those clothes,” he added, drawing murmuring support from the crowd. “You’re bleeding all over them.”

“You’re incorrigible,” said Chandler