Bowman stood still for a beat. The fog behind his eyes instantly cleared as two billion years of survival instincts kicked in. The guy in front of him was huge, broad in the arms and shoulders. His legs were as wide as temple columns. His fingers were the approximate size of beer cans. About the only small thing about the guy was his head. It was small and round, like a medicine ball, the pale fleshy face crowned with a trim Mohawk. He had the bloated, acned look of a steroid addict. Not one of Seguma’s bodyguards, Bowman decided. He didn’t have the facial scars. Which meant he must be one of Lang’s heavies.

Minders. Dumb muscle he can trust.

Bowman reached for the Ruger.

In the next fraction of a second, the heavy lunged forward.

Roidhead wasn’t fast. Bowman had seen oil tankers move with more speed. But he had time on his side. Lots of it. The Ruger was on the countertop beside the sink. It would take Bowman two or three seconds to snatch up the pistol, aim at Roidhead’s centre mass and squeeze the trigger. No way he could reach it in time. Not with two hundred and fifty pounds of muscle bearing down on him.

Roidhead jacked his right arm back, winding up for a clean strike to Bowman’s jaw. He was going for broke. Aiming to land a killer blow before his opponent could react. Not a sophisticated plan. But then again, it didn’t need to be. Sometimes the crudest strategies were the best. Like the equivalent of a long ball in a game of football, pumping it forward to the striker. Route-one stuff. One punch and he could win the cup.

Bowman parried the punch, palming it away. He shaped to throw one of his own, but the shakes had badly slowed him down. His arms and legs felt as if they had lead weights tied around them. Roidhead saw the balled fist driving at him and jerked his head to the side, sidestepping the blow. Then he pushed forward, slamming his forehead into Bowman’s skull. Bowman saw white briefly. Something jarred inside his skull. He tasted blood and stumbled backwards. His vision cleared just in time to see Roidhead swinging at him again. He gasped as the heavy’s hard knuckles collided with his stomach, driving the air out of his lungs.

He glanced up, saw Roidhead stomping forward, his right shoulder dropped as he shaped to throw another punch. Bowman deflected the blow with a ragged swipe of his forearm, then stamped down on Roidhead’s toes with his right heel, as if he was crushing a cockroach underfoot. He followed up with another quick attack, then snatched a glass tumbler from the countertop and smashed it against the side of his opponent’s temple. Roidhead groaned and staggered backwards, claret dripping down his face.

‘Bastard!’ he rasped.