For Valour Read Free Page A

soft, sad echo. So, not a wheel. The osprey was calling to its mate.
    I went back to the boiler and wrapped the cloth around a pressure joint by a right-angle bend. If anybody was in the mood to examine it closely enough, I wanted this thing to look like it had sprung a slow leak, and that meant leaving no scratch marks on the brass. I tightened the jaws of the spanner over the freshly wrapped nut, gripped the moulded, rubber-sheathed handle and applied some gentle pressure. It was rock solid.
    I tried again, with a bit more muscle. Same result.
    The third time, it gave.
    I loosened the spanner, removed the cloth, crouched down and leaned my ear right up close to the joint. There was a whisper of gas, like air leaving a radiator valve if you could be bothered to do the rounds with your little brass key when the cold weather arrived.
    The digital time display read 19.57. There was probably a scientific formula for this, but I had no idea what it was. I just wanted Koureh’s basement to fill with enough gas to make a nice big bang the moment he opened that door.
    Natural gas was lighter than air, and dissipated relatively easily. The house had been built in the thirties, so it wouldn’t take long for it to find its way up between the floorboards. The trick was to make sure the mixture was right – more than five per cent by volume but less than fifteen, or it wouldn’t ignite. I gave the nut an extra twist for luck, replaced the spanner and the cloth where I’d found them and shut the cupboard.
    I wound the alarm clock, primed it to go off in a couple of hours, and left it on the slab of highly polished granite nearest to the doorway. It didn’t exactly go with the Georg Jensen gear in the rest of the house, but if Koureh hadn’t already lit himself a cigar upstairs or come down here to pop his boxers into the washing-machine or do a session on the treadmill, it would ring loudly enough for him to throw open the door to see what was going on.
    At that point the strikers would brush the match heads and we’d have ourselves a serious bonfire. If all else failed I’d creep back onto the sundeck, light his Gucci hurricane lantern, lob it through the glass into his living room, then do a runner.
    As I hauled myself out of the basement window and lowered it back into place, the silence of the pine forest was suddenly broken, and the cries I heard now had nothing to do with the ospreys.

7
    Harry was sprinting across the lawn, brandishing the world’s biggest branch and shrieking like a banshee as the crunch of tyres on gravel announced the arrival of a wagon at the front of the house.
    He’d obviously decided to bin Plan A. Plan B seemed to involve hurling himself straight at the target’s vehicle with the intention of clubbing him senseless.
    Plan B wasn’t the best plan in the world. Then again, maybe it wasn’t the worst. When I’d slithered out from underneath the steps I could see that Koureh had his roof down. But he wasn’t about to sit there admiring the sunset while some crazed lunatic got up close and battered him around the head.
    As Harry stormed onto the driveway, Koureh adjusted his steering, floored his accelerator pedal and rammed his attacker mid-thigh.
    Harry cartwheeled off the front wing like a rag doll. He landed in a heap on the gravel, gave a low moan and scrabbled around with his fingernails, like a lobster trying to escape the cooking pot. He wasn’t going anywhere fast.
    Koureh braked hard and threw the Saab into reverse. It took me a second to realize that he was more intent on finishing the job with Harry than getting out of my way. I caught up with him as the nearside rear tyre missed his victim’s head and bumped across his lower torso, and launched myself into the back seat as the front tyre followed suit.
    Koureh spun the wheel to throw me off balance, but before his right hand could yank the gearstick into first I scrambled up and wrapped my right arm around his throat. I wrenched him