Phantom(97)

When Harry had felt the hand on his head he had known instinctively. Known it was not a drunken customer or an old acquaintance, but them. The hand slid off and that gave Harry a tenth of a second to look in the mirror, to see the glint of steel. He already knew where it was heading. Then the hand was around his forehead and jerking him backwards. It was too late to put a hand between throat and blade, so Harry stood on the foot rail and levered himself upwards while squeezing his chin against his chest. He felt no pain as the knife sliced his skin, didn’t feel it until it cut through to the chin and penetrated the sensitive membrane around the bone.

Then he met the other man’s eyes in the mirror. He pulled Harry’s head back towards his own, making them resemble two friends posing for a picture. Harry felt the blade being pressed against his chin and chest, trying to find a way into one of the two neck arteries, and he knew that within a few seconds it would succeed.

Sergey wrapped the whole of his arm around the man’s forehead and jerked with all his might. The man’s head tilted backwards, and in the mirror he saw the blade finally find the gap between chin and chest and slide in. The steel bit into the throat and moved to the right, towards the neck artery, the arteria carotis. Blin! The man had managed to lift his right hand and stick a finger between knife and artery. But Sergey knew the razor-sharp edge would sever a finger. It was just a question of applying enough pressure. He pulled. And pulled.

Harry could feel the pressure from the knife, but knew it wouldn’t make any headway. The highest strength-to-weight ratio of any metal. Nothing cut through titanium, whether it was made in Hong Kong or not. But the guy was strong, soon he would realise that the blade wasn’t biting.

He groped with his free hand in front of him, knocking over his drink, and found something.

It was a T-shaped corkscrew. Of the simplest kind, with a short helix. He grabbed the handle with the point protruding between first and second fingers. Felt panic surge as he heard the knife blade slide over the prosthesis. He forced his eyes down to see in the mirror. See where he should aim. Raised his hand to the side and struck backwards, behind his head.

He noticed the other man’s body stiffen as the tip of the corkscrew perforated the skin on the side of his neck. But it was an innocuous, superficial wound and it didn’t stop him. He was beginning to shift the knife to the left. Harry concentrated. The corkscrew demanded a firm, practised hand. However, a couple of turns was all it needed to penetrate deep into the cork. Harry twisted twice. Felt it slip through the flesh. Bore its way in. Felt soft resistance. The oesophagus. Then he pulled.

It was like pulling the bung from the side of a full barrel of red wine.

Sergey Ivanov was fully conscious and saw the whole process in the mirror as the first heartbeat sent a jet of blood to the right. His brain registered, analysed and formed a conclusion: the man whose throat he was trying to cut had found a main artery with a corkscrew, pulled the vessel from his neck and it was now pumping out his life blood. Sergey had three further thoughts before the second heartbeat came and consciousness went.

He had let down his uncle.

He would never see his beloved Siberia again.

He was going to be buried with a tattoo that lied.

On the third beat of his heart he fell. And by the time the song finished, Sergey Ivanov was dead.

Harry got up from the stool. In the mirror he saw the cut running across his chin. But that wasn’t the worst; there were deep cuts to his throat from which blood was trickling and had already discoloured his entire collar.

The three other customers in the bar had gone. He looked down at the man lying on the floor. Blood was still flowing from the gash in his neck, but it wasn’t pumping. Which meant that his heart had stopped beating and there was no point trying to revive him. And even if there had been life left in him, Harry knew this person would never have revealed who had sent him. Because he saw the tattoos protruding above the shirt. He didn’t know any of the symbols, but he knew they were Russian. Black Corn maybe. They were different from the typically Western tattoo belonging to the barman, who was pressed up against the mirror shelf and staring with pupils so black with shock they seemed to cover the whites of his eyes. Nirvana had faded out and there was total silence. Harry looked at the whiskey glass lying on its side.

‘Sorry about the mess,’ he said.

Then he picked up the cloth from the counter, wiped first where his hands had been, then the glass, then the handle of the corkscrew, which he put back. He checked that none of his own blood had ended up on the counter or the floor. Then he bent over the dead man and wiped his bloody hand, the long, ivory knife handle and the thin blade. The weapon – for it was a weapon and useless for anything else – was heavier than any knife he had ever held. The edge was as sharp as a Japanese sushi knife. Harry hesitated. Then he folded the blade into the shaft, heard a soft click as it locked, flicked the safety catch and dropped it into his jacket pocket.