Dark Fever

He gave a gasp of pain and staggered backwards, then recovered and came at her again with the knife, muttering in Spanish. She didn’t know what he said—his voice was muffled by his helmet—but it sounded very unpleasant, and she knew that this time he was not trying to cut her handbag straps—he wanted to hurt her. The air throbbed with hatred.

A second later a car came round the corner. The yellow beam of its headlights lit them as if they were on a stage. She turned to face it, waving urgently, shouting, ‘Help! Help!’

The black-clad figure on the motorbike shouted out in Spanish and turned the bike to come back towards them. Snarling, the other boy climbed on to the pillion, made a very rude gesture at Bianca with his black-gloved hand, then they rode off at high speed and disappeared.

Bianca sagged against the wall, her knees turning to jelly, trembling violently now that the adrenalin had gone and reaction had set in.

The car screeched to a stop and a man got out and strode towards her, saying something in Spanish. She weakly lifted her head and the light of the street-lamp fell on her face and showed her his—they recognised each other in that instant. He was the man she had seen swimming that morning.

‘Are you OK? Did he hurt you?’ he asked in a deep, husky voice, his grey eyes moving over her in search of some visible sign of injury.

She shook her head, feeling even more like fainting. Why did it have to be him who came along just at this moment? It seemed less like a coincidence than a punishment. He was the last man she wanted to see right now.

‘He wanted my handbag,’ she whispered.

‘Did he get it?’ His English was very good, but she heard the faint note of a foreign accent. Presumably he was Spanish. He was certainly very dark, with olive skin and black hair which was glossy and very thick.

He was very casually dressed, in cream linen trousers and a chocolate-brown shirt, worn without a tie, the collar open at the throat to give her a glimpse of the bronzed skin she had stared at that morning when he’d climbed out of the pool. The very memory of that moment sent a wave of heat through her whole body. From a distance she had found him devastating—at such close proximity he had an even deeper impact on her.

‘No,’ she said unsteadily, showing him her handbag which she still clutched in one hand. Then she broke out in a voice that shook, ‘He had a knife!’

She still couldn’t believe it. It would be a long time before she got over the shock of seeing the knife shining in the lamplight. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before; she had always led a rather quiet, peaceful existence; violence was something she had only read about in newspapers. She had never imagined it happening to her.

‘I saw it. As I was driving towards you I saw the knife he held and I thought he was trying to kill you—you’re sure you aren’t hurt?’

She was wearing a little black jacket over a white dress printed with lilacs. He reached out to touch her shoulders and arms lightly, his fingertips gliding over the material of the jacket in exploration.

She quivered helplessly, shaken to her depths by what she instantly felt—his fingertips left a trail of fire on her skin through the layers of material under them.

‘No, I...I’m not... He didn’t hurt me...’ she stammered.

‘You’re cold,’ he said, his frown even deeper. ‘That’s shock. Come and sit in my car. I’ll call the police.’

She urgently said, ‘No, please don’t—I don’t want to spend hours talking to policemen; he didn’t get anything, or hurt me, so... I couldn’t even describe him; he was wearing a helmet that made it impossible to see his face; he looked like a spaceman.’

His face tightened in disapproval. ‘You ought to tell the police about it—he’s dangerous;

he might use that knife on someone else and they might not be as lucky as you were.’

She knew he was absolutely right; it was what she would have said herself to anyone who had been attacked like that. How different a situation looked when it was you, yourself, who was experiencing it. Her common sense and reason told her one thing, she felt another.

Sighing, she said, ‘ Well... could you ask if I could talk to them tomorrow? I really don’t feel up to it tonight.’

He stared down at her, his face still hard. ‘Very well, I’ll get in touch, explain what happened; I shall have to give evidence too, because I witnessed the attack. I’ll ask if you can talk to them tomorrow. Come along, I’ll drive you back to the hotel.’

She resisted the hand that tried to lead her away. ‘I’m with a group from the hotel—they’re in that bar; they’ll come out looking for me any minute.’

He shrugged her refusal away coolly. ‘I’ll go in and speak to the guide—it’s Ramon tonight, isn’t it?’

Startled, she nodded. ‘Yes.’ How had he known that? Had he been on this tour himself? Or did he work at the hotel?

He had such a marvellous tan—he must surely live here to have got so brown at this time of year. That tan was not the product of a week or two in Spain. It spoke of months of exposure to the sun.

‘Sit in my car and I’ll have a word with him, then I’ll drive you back.’

Bianca was so shaken by what had happened that she didn’t argue, although in other circumstances she might have done. She was too independent and used to running her own life and taking care of herself and her children to enjoy being ordered around by some strange man. But tonight she was quite relieved to be able to let him take charge; she let him lead her to his car and slide her into the front passenger seat.

He left the door open, but instead of going straight into the bar he went round to the back of his car and was back a moment later with a warm woollen tartan car rug which he gently wrapped around her.