I rapped on the door, once. The second time it creaked open, cobwebs tearing apart, and dust falling in the dim light from the windows. Dusk was on its way. I pulled out my torch and holding it up at shoulder height, I made an inspection of the downstairs landing. A dusty antique chest on chest, riddled with termites, stood on the verge of collapse, to the left there hung a picture, yellowed and flaking in a cracked frame. Studying it under torchlight I could see it was Mr Frankenheimer. Before the war. He was smiling at the camera, as he shook the hand of another man whom I didn’t recognise. The man had a monocle and a scar that ran from the corner of his mouth up to his eye. The scar pulled his smile back in a contortionist’s rictus. I’d sooner shoot and ask questions later. I got the distinct feeling that this man I was peering at across the passage of time was the man behind this whole set-up. It was an instinct, a crying out in my gut but I’d long learned to listen to those cries. I fingered the wound still red and raised on my forehead – a reminder of the last time I’d ignored such instincts.
The door behind me banged shut. There was a click of a gun being cocked, and a match being struck simultaneously. I turned, my hooded eyes falling on the blackened shape of a man, wide shoulders under a fedora.
‘Mr Markovich I presume,’ the shape spoke.
‘Who’s asking?’
‘From where I’m standing you’re in no position to be asking such questions. You seem to value your life at a low premium. All the better for me then for I am here to extinguish you.’
‘How much for the liquidation?’ I asked, stalling, my hand curling around a candle stick holder balanced on a side table behind me.
‘Oh, that’s quite enough of the questions. Here,’ he threw me some rope. “Tie your wrists.’
Image courtesy of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jordi_Bernet
