If he's still alive, bullshit, of course I'll still be alive, drop another six inches, keep the iron rectangle between the feet for guidance, drop another six inches but the strain on the shoulders was beginning to nag, the shoulders and the biceps, what would you expect, drop another six but don't hurry, don't slip, ignore the absence of feeling now in the fingers, the claws, they're just obeying the motor nerves, clamp and wait and release and clamp again with the tenacity of a bloody crab, drop another six inches then and don't complain but the shoulders were on fire now and into my mind there came the question, why wasn't the heat from them melting the snow, but there wasn't any snow on the wall, what was I -

Watch it, don't lose your marbles, this is hardly the time or the place.

Shook my head to clear it, just the strain, it was just the strain of the physical demand on the organism that was threatening to blank out rational thought, ignore and proceed and drop another six inches and look down, take another look down, oh Jesus, we weren't more than halfway through this desperate business and it was going to be a question of time now before the fingers, the claws lost their muscle tone and couldn't clamp any more, couldn't clamp and wait and release and clamp again, would simply come away from the pipe and send me backwards into the air and down into the pit of oblivion, look up again and keep the eyes shut and wait for the vertigo to fade, think of nothing, or think of Jakub, the cooling cadaver whose padded coat I wore, smelling still of his sweat, are we then to meet, my good friend, my late adversary, is that the game now, are you waiting for me there, watching over the rites of passage this dangling crab thing is now embarked upon? Are we so soon to be united, my brother, in the death that shall transcend all means by which we shall dance in the shadowed hinterland of – Watch it, for Christ's sake, get the mind under control, count five, then, and drop again, feel for the pipe below and drop again.

I think I was twenty feet from the ground, judging by the level of the window sills, when I realized there was no creeper on this bloody wall, no fibrous life-line I could use after all if I needed one, and it was now that I felt movement in the iron rectangle of the pipe as one of the big staples came away and the pipe quivered and I dropped again without intention this time and clawed for purchase as the adrenalin came flooding into the bloodstream and brought a flush to the skin as the pipe turned by degrees against the wall and another staple was ripped from its hole, loosened by my weight and movement and the erosion that had been going on for year after year and the -

Mother of God -

As the last section of pipe was torn from the wall it leaned across the gap over the alleyway and I went with it, dangling now like a monkey from a pole with my legs swinging in space and one hand losing its grip and the other clinging on until the whole section rolled and pitched me sideways and there was nothing but the air beneath me and I plummeted, hitting the wall and bouncing off with the sound of a huge bell ringing in my skull and the burst of star shells as I hit the ground and heard another sound, the quick thudding of feet, and as the dark came down I caught the pale blur of a face and the glint of a gun barrel slanting towards me and thought yes, finis this time, finito.

The small head was hooded, making it look much larger, and the jaws were opening, the fangs curving back into the pink rippling throat. The eyes were black, reflecting the light and only half-concealing the anger of the predator disturbed.

It was swaying, the head, with a slow sinister rhythm, only inches from my face, so close that my eyes were losing focus.

Then it stopped and drew back, preparing for the strike.

I rocked as icy water hit me and ran down to my chin.

'More.'

Water again, bursting between my eyes, ice cubes bouncing like stones, the skin contracting to the chill. But I hardly noticed it, was worried about the snake, the hooded cobra.

'Again.'

This time I closed my eyes in time, and when I opened them I saw that the thing's head had stopped swaying. And now I could see it wasn't a cobra, though a cobra would have been more fitting. The jaws were feline, the head capped with tufted ears. A cougar. I could see the whole of the gold silk pocket now, with the head emblazoned on it, then Vishinsky leaned back to watch me from his chair.

Vishinsky the Cougar, right, made sense, consciousness coming back.

Must, I must have smashed my head against the wall when I'd landed on the ground in the alleyway, last remembered image was the muzzle, the muzzle of the gun.

Some degree of concussion, then, or I'd lost blood when Jakub's bullet had grazed my skull on the roof. Memory clear enough, thank God for that.

'Again?'

'No.'

Watching me, elegant in his gold silk dressing-gown, his eyes shimmering with fury.

No tree, then, behind me, no rat-tat-tat. But I could remember the car now, the inside of the car, the sharp athletic stink of sweat, I wish these bloody people would wash sometimes. Watching the play of street lights across the reflective surfaces of the car, I'd thought they were taking me to the forest. But later there'd been that impression of lightness as they'd carried me through a doorway and into a lift with mirrored walls, heard the drone of the cables, then another blackout.

'Do you recognize me?'

Vishinsky.

I wasn't sure, I'd have to give it some thought. It might be better to fake it for a few minutes, the syncope, take a bit longer to pull out, give myself time to orientate.

'More water, boss?'

'No.'

'I'm not sure,' I told the man in the black-and-chromium chair.

'I am the Cougar.'

Reminded me of the way he'd done this before, talked of himself in the third person, presenting, as a psychiatrist might put it, a degree of megalomania, might be useful, something to work with.

Head ached a bit, blood caked on the left side of the skull, I could feel it as I flexed the skin. Something blue underneath me, royal blue, a bath towel, I was sitting on a bath towel with my back to the wall. He didn't want to spoil the carpet, Vishinsky, with bloodstains, what infernal nerve, I was a guest here, if you want to stretch your imagination a bit.

'Oh,' I said, 'the Cougar. Yes, I remember now.'

'Good.' The tone cutting, soft with rage. I knew why, of course: they would have searched me for weapons, found Jakub's wallet.

Taste of blood in the mouth: perhaps my tongue had got between my teeth when I'd come unstuck in the alleyway. I didn't think there was any internal bleeding going on: there'd been no trauma to the lungs.

I looked around me and saw four bodyguards, all on their feet and watching me in a concerted focus of attention; star, I was the show, star of the show, head throbbing, take your time, we must take our time, there was no hurry to run through the final stages of my life in this particular reality before the man in the chair decided to bring it to a screaming halt because of what I'd done to Jakub, a modern suite, this, modern hotel, black glass and chrome surfaces with a whole console of communications equipment bristling with antennae over there near the long and sumptuously stocked bar, a big Rousseau print, the jungle one, and a brushed-aluminium-framed painting of a cougar, snarling and back arched, above the fireplace where artificial logs were flickering unconvincingly, and look at that, a miniature guillotine, cute little basket and all - fingers, would that be the game, then, first the tips and then the rest of them, working down through the knuckles and the blood-crimson haze of the mind that refused to speak on its way to the only exit available, insanity? Because he had some questions for me, I knew that now: he'd had me taken alive.