Dark Fever

‘Your English is amazing! I’m terribly impressed. I barely know six words of German.’

‘My husband works for a big German company—we travel the world with him, my children and I. He once spent two years in America, so we all learnt English.’

‘Is he here with you?’ Bianca glanced around the crowded little bar trying to guess which of the men belonged to Friederike.

‘He is the guy with a red tie, playing dominoes at that table,’ Freddie told her. Bianca inspected him, smiling.

‘He’s very attractive! Lucky you!’ He was clearly older than his wife, a man approaching fifty, bronzed and slim, brown-haired,

brown-eyed, with a touch of silver at the temples, and still very good-looking.

‘Yes, I am, but he is cross tonight. He didn’t want to come on this bar cruise. Karl does not like to be out late. He wanted to stay in our suite looking after our children, but I talked him into coming.’

‘How old are your children?’

‘Teenagers. I keep telling him they don’t need babysitters any more. We have two sons, twins aged fourteen, Franz and Wolfgang, and my daughter Renata, who is seventeen and getting prettier all the time. When I walked around with her men used to stare at me—now they stare at her! I feel like the wicked queen in Snow White. I look into my mirror and grind my teeth every day.’

Bianca did not take her too seriously—she was laughing as she said it and was much too lovely to feel threatened even by a daughter who was half her age. Freddie was probably in her early forties but she looked ten years younger—her skin was smooth and unlined and her eyes were bright and clear. Her figure was slim and her clothes classy.

Karl looked up and saw them watching him and beckoned to his wife. Freddie groaned. ‘He’s going to ask when we can go back to the hotel! He’s bored already.’ She slid down from her bar stool and smiled at Bianca. ‘Nice talking to you. See you later.’

Bianca sipped her glass of red wine doubtfully—it tasted like red ink. She couldn’t help feeling that she sympathised with Freddie’s husband—she wasn’t enjoying this evening much either. But it would have been depressing to stay in her apartment by herself.

‘You are alone, señora?’ asked the Spanish guide, sliding into the seat beside her.

She gave him a wary look, nodding, hoping he was not going to make some sort of pass. A short, dark-skinned man in his thirties with a distinct paunch, he was not her type. But all he said was, ‘Then please be careful not to leave the group. Keep with us at all times. I am afraid handbags have been snatched lately. There are some gangs in town, from other big towns—they work in pairs, going around on motorbikes, and they’re so quick—they come up behind you and snatch your bag, and they’ve gone before you know what is happening.’

‘I’ll be careful,’ Bianca assured him, taking a piece of chorizo, the spicy red local sausage, from a little tapas saucer.

‘Enjoy, senora,’ he smiled, getting up to go and talk to some of the other guests.

They moved on a few minutes later to another bar, another selection of tapas—the other guests grazed eagerly on the food on offer while they drank their glasses of wine, discussing the various dishes with each other. Bianca noticed that Freddie and her husband had disappeared; perhaps they had taken a taxi back to the hotel.

The range of tapas was bewildering—artichokes in vinaigrette, baby clams served in a garlic sauce, fried whitebait, baby eels or squid, snails, mushrooms in a rich tomato sauce, chorizo, hard-boiled eggs stuffed with a variety of things. Everything was beautifully cooked but very rich.

The last bar they visited was the best—along with the tapas there was music and flamenco dancing, a black-jacketed man urgently drumming the heels of his highly polished shoes, his partner dancing with passion and invitation around him, her red skirts flaring.

The sexual tension in the music and dancing did something drastic to Bianca’s mood. She was flushed and feverish as she clapped along with the others and drummed her feet, as they were instructed—the rhythm of the music had got into her blood.

When the dancing ended the bar seemed even noisier; as the evening went on and more and more people piled inside until there was hardly room to move. Bianca began to get a faint headache. She needed some fresh air so she wriggled through the crowded bar and went outside into the cool Spanish night.

She had no intention of going far; she would just wait in the street for her companions to come and join her. They would be leaving soon, she imagined—it was getting very late.

The cool air was delicious on her overheated skin; she stood there breathing in for a minute, sighing with pleasure, feeling her headache easing off, and then, across the narrow street, she saw a small boutique and was struck by a dress displayed in the window. It reminded Bianca of the dress the flamenco dancer had worn—low-necked, tight-waisted, full in the skirt, and a vivid red. She walked over to take a closer look. It was stunning on the window dummy—she wasn’t sure she had the nerve to wear it in public, it was so dramatic and eye-catching; her children were bound to laugh at her. But she was tempted. She had the right colouring and she was slim enough to wear a dress like that.

She frowned, trying to work out the price in English money, and was vaguely aware of a motorbike roaring round the corner from the main square and heading towards her.

It slowed as it reached her, someone jumped off it, and she saw another reflection move in the glass window of the boutique beside her own reflection. A small, slim figure in black leather, the face hidden by a black helmet, was running up behind her. The motorbike had skidded to a stop a few yards on along the street.

With a start, Bianca remembered the guide’s warning about motorbike thieves. Her nerves jumping, she swung round, just as the black-clad figure grabbed for her handbag. She instinctively opened her mouth wide and began to yell, holding on to her bag like grim death. The fact that she couldn’t see the face of her attacker made the whole thing more frightening.

After trying to yank her bag away the boy let go and pushed his hand into his black leather jacket—the hand came out holding something. In the street-light’s yellow gleam she saw steel glittering and her throat closed in shock. He was holding a knife.

Everything seemed to go into slow motion. She stared at the long, razor-edged blade, frozen, saw the black-gloved hand holding it, the black leather cuff of the boy’s jacket not quite meeting the glove.

Between them there was a red line etched in the tanned flesh—a knife-cut, she thought dumbly, and somehow the sight of the scar made the knife real. She went into panic, backing away, so scared that she had even stopped screaming. The knife slashed downwards. For a second she thought he was stabbing her—then she realised what he intended. He was trying to cut the straps of her handbag.

Her fear subsided a little, but, because she had been really scared, now she got angry. She had once been to a short self-defence class at the local evening school; she remembered what she had been taught, and brought her knee up into his groin, hard.