His arm in the X-ray looked ghostly, the bone a grey shadow against the glossy black of the negative, or whatever to call it, and the fractures showing up as little fine cobwebby lines. The doctor gave him the X-ray plate to keep, but he lost it somewhere.

It was as easy as snapping a dry stick, just one good twist was all it took.

The Girl started to scream but he clapped a hand over her mouth and pushed her down on her back on the bed and got his knee into her chest. To tell the truth, he was almost as surprised as she was. He didn’t like acting impulsively, but that was the way it was with impulse, the thing was done before you knew it – look what had happened with Percy down the docks that night. Anyway, hadn’t she provoked him, shrieking the way she did and then coming at him with her fists?

Now she was holding on to her wrist and making mewling sounds behind his hand, like a cat, or a newborn baby, and her eyes were shut tight and big shiny tears were squeezing out between the lids.

‘Take it easy, sweetheart,’ he said, baring his teeth and pushing his knee harder into her chest. ‘Take it easy, now.’

Afterwards he realised that he hadn’t acted on impulse at all, that without knowing it he had goaded her until she lost her temper and gave him the excuse to do what he did. Amazing the way the mind worked by itself like that, sometimes. The mind had a mind of its own, you might say. Heh heh. He must remember that. Not that there was anyone he could say it to who would appreciate it.

Dede, the hairy guy who had given him the key and the little towel that first day, and who turned out to be the owner of the place, made a fuss, and threatened to get his amigos to come and break a couple of Terry’s wrists, just to show him what it felt like. Dede didn’t much care about the Girl, but he was under pressure already, with one chippie off sick with the clap and two others he had sent on their holidays before the tourist season got going in earnest.

Terry swore it had been an accident, that the Girl had tripped and fallen on her wrist. He knew she wouldn’t contradict him. He had made sure, Spanish or no Spanish, that she understood what he’d do to her if she ratted on him – a snapped wrist would be the least of it. He could see Dede didn’t believe him, about it being an accident, but he called for an ambulance anyway.