A Game of Consequences

by Shelley Smith

  ‘Now,’ said Tom, with a strange grin, as the door swung shut, ‘I rather think I’ll have that money back.’ He made a fractional gesture with the revolver: ‘Just pack it up again, will you!’

  ‘Right,’ said Eskdale. ‘You want it, you have it!’ And so saying, he thrust the table against Tom with all his force, causing him to stagger backwards. The notes fell over him like the cards in Alice in Wonderland.

  He saw the flash of light run along the blade as Eskdale came at him with the bread-knife. Automatically Tom brought up the revolver and fired.

  It would have been impossible to miss at that distance. Eskdale lurched back under the impact and banged up against a cupboard. He stumbled forward again like a drunkard, the knife still in his grasp, as Tom scrambled to his feet and took the knife’s impact full in his belly. He felt the blow but no pain, and fired again.

  The Butagaz lamp crashed to the floor and immediately exploded. Flames leaped up the wall and ran along the floor devouring the scattered bundles of paper-currency.

  The two men were writhing together on the floor, Eskdale holding down Tom’s hand with the revolver in it and at the same time stabbing him with a knife. Tom brought up his knee, and with a tremendous effort wrenched his arm free. He fired twice more into Eskdale’s body. He got to his feet and became aware of the scorching heat and the burns … The vehicle was hopelessly ablaze … flames twenty feet high, scorching the dark poplars …

  Heaven alone knows how he managed to reach the roadside — a man in his condition. Several cars, as they passed, must have noticed him staggering along the road; sometimes falling to his knees, sometimes on his face. None of them stopped. Perhaps they thought he was drunk. Perhaps they just didn’t want to be involved. He must have been slowly bleeding his life away for half an hour before he was picked up.

  He died in the hospital without regaining consciousness. There was no reason for the police to connect him with the burnt out caravan in which the remains of a corpse had been found, with the traces of four bullet holes in his carcase. There was nothing about him by which he could be identified. Just a man in a scorched T-shirt and jeans — the sort of garments worn by any Frenchman, any tourist. A man, who had been in a fight in which he had received twelve wounds. Five of which would have been fatal.

  No one came forward to claim the body. No one reported him missing. He must have been someone of no importance. A person without friends or family.

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