I went to our bedroom window, opened it, for the room was stuffy, and leaned out. The night air was fresh and cool but not cold. A little breeze made the plane leaves rustle and their threadlike branches sway. Down in the street, up against the curb on our side, an unmarked white van was parked. As far as I could tell no one was inside it. Was it Jonny’s? How would one know? The registration number was obscured by darkness but it would have been useless if I had seen it. I had never noticed the number of Jonny’s van.

Silver stirred when I went back to bed, turned over and put both arms around me. The arm that was underneath me dug into my breasts and the arm on top seemed set to crush my ribs, but I felt that this was part of his complete return to me and I soon fell asleep—to be awakened after what seemed a moment only, a second or two, by a scream loud enough and terrible enough to be heard on Maida Hill. I jumped out of bed. Silver’s arm was numb from my lying on it. He staggered up, rubbing the cramped muscles. The screaming went on, then died to a dreadful low keening. It wasn’t Liv’s voice but a man’s.

Someone was in the living room. The lights were still off. Still shaking his benumbed arm, Silver was heading for the switch when someone pushed past him. The front door came open and whoever it was crashed down the stairs. Silver put the light on. I gasped. There was blood on the carpet, not spilled blood but stains and smears as if someone had wiped it off his shoes. Liv’s bedroom door was shut. From behind it came whimpers and sobs.

Silver, his hand on the doorknob, said, “Don’t come in.”

“I thought he’d killed her,” I said. “But that’s her, isn’t it? Those noises?”

This time I didn’t take his advice. I followed him into the room. I put the light on and saw blood all over the bed and the walls and the floor. Not Liv but Wim had been attacked. He had passed out but came back to consciousness as we approached the bed. I thought I wasn’t squeamish but when I saw his right leg I had to go out of there, ashamed of myself as I was, and vomit into the bathroom sink.

It took a tremendous effort of will to go back. Wim lay still, moaning, half on his side, half on his front, blood pumping from the back of his leg. He had been struck with something sharp and heavy some six inches above the heel where the Achilles tendon passes.

“It was Jonny,” Liv sobbed. “We were sleeping. He came in and pulled off the sheet and the blanket and hit Wim’s leg with a—a—”

“An ax by the look of it,” said Silver.

Chapter 30

30