previous hour, she had managed to fall into a deep and dreamless sleep. Maybe she had passed out?
Irene tottered down to the dark breakfast room in the hotel’s cellar level and downed several cups of instant coffee. She was still full after Donna’s birthday dinner. Half a cheese sandwich was all she had room for. Her headache eased and she could start thinking.
She had to tell the police what had happened. The only sensible thing to do was to try to reach Glen Thompson. They had decided that he would pick her up outside the hotel at twenty minutes to eleven, but now it would be better if he arrived earlier.
In her room, Irene took out Glen’s card and dialed his work number. She was in luck; he answered right away. Irene tried to explain that something serious had happened the night before, but he interrupted her. “I’ll come as soon as possible.”
Irene went down to the lobby to wait. Estelle hurried past, chirped “Good morning,” and disappeared quickly into the hotel’s inner environs. She couldn’t have slept too many hours, but you wouldn’t have been able to tell by looking at her. Irene didn’t fool herself; her reflection in the mirror had shown that her night had been difficult, but Estelle probably assumed that it was because of too much wine.
A black Rover turned in at the hotel entrance. Glen’s sunny smile faded immediately when he saw Irene’s face.
“Let’s go up to your room,” he said.
IRENE EXPLAINED exactly what had happened. Glen didn’t interrupt her. When she was done, he shook his head.
“Unbelievable! The question is, who had the worse luck: you, who were attacked your first night in London, or the attackers, who went up against an ex-master of ju-jitsu!”
He smiled but immediately became serious again. “I’m going to notify the police in this district.”
Glen called from the telephone in Irene’s room. He spoke a long time with different people. He was quiet for long periods, nodding and listening. Sometimes he glanced in Irene’s direction and she thought that something flickered in his eyes; he almost looked frightened.
“Come on. It’s time to go. I’ll tell you all I learned in the car,” Glen said, finally.
HE DIDN’T start the car directly when they had gotten in, but looked at Irene gravely.
“You had incredible luck. Thanks to your knowledge of jujitsu, you avoided a terrible fate.”
He turned on the ignition. The car started with a soft rumble, and he pulled away from the curb. “The taxi was stolen. The driver was found, with critical stab wounds having been robbed, on a small back street where they are in the process of tearing down some houses, just a few blocks from Vitória. He was gagged and his hands were bound with tape. He’s in pretty bad shape and is in the hospital. The only consolation is that now both culprits are, as well.”
Glen stopped to let an older woman with a walker cross the street at a crosswalk. When she had managed to make her way to the other side, he gunned the accelerator and continued. “The man in the back seat who attacked you is Ned Atkinson, known as Gravedigger.”
He fell silent again. Irene’s headache was pressing against the inside of her forehead. So she had fought with a man named Gravedigger. She tried to speak, but her tongue felt stiff and strange.
“Ned is an old lag and a drug addict. He was released a few months ago after completing a twelve-year sentence as an accessory to murder. His specialty is to assist in contract killings in the underworld and to get rid of the bodies. Hence the name Gravedigger.”
Irene managed to coax her tongue to move and tried to reassure herself with a feeble smile. “Dare one ask what the other man is called?”
Glen gave her a long look before he answered. “The Butcher.”
The Butcher. Irene decided not to ask anything else.
“You were lucky that he wasn’t the one who pulled you into the car. The Butcher weighs about a hundred and thirty kilos and is incredibly strong. But he injured himself when he escaped from prison last month. They discovered a large infected sore on his knee when he was admitted to the hospital last night for his head injury. The superintendent I spoke with said that a normal person would hardly have been able to walk around with such an injury. The Butcher was forced to. He couldn’t go to an emergency room: A nationwide bulletin had