The Third Woman--A Stephanie Patrick Thriller by Mark Burnell

Author:Mark Burnell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

* * *

Stephanie tucked the Smith & Wesson Sigma into the waistband of her trousers and moved through the apartment with the Heckler & Koch USP at the ready. She assumed Grotius had come in through the front door; her sweep provided no sign of an alternative entry or of any accomplice.

In the sitting-room Newman was on the sofa, hunched over a wastepaper bin.

‘How are you feeling?’ she asked him.

‘Marvellous. Next stupid question?’

She gave him a glass of water. ‘Drink this. Don’t gulp it.’

When he looked up at her his eyes widened, revealing bloodshot whites. ‘Shit—are you okay?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘You’re covered in blood.’

Stephanie gave him a look that belonged to Petra. ‘It’s not all mine.’

‘Jesus … is he…’

‘Don’t worry about him. He’s in the kitchen wearing my spaghetti.’

She went to the bathroom. The left side of her shirt was soaked. She unfastened the buttons and peeled the material away. The cut was almost six inches long. Grotius could easily have sliced through to the spine; a moving target, a matter of inches. The blood flowed freely. She rinsed her hands in the sink and investigated the laceration with a forefinger. The central third was deeper than she’d expected.

She looked in the cupboard; Nurofen, a half-used pack of plasters, an out-of-date strip of anti-inflammatory pills, a box of unused antiseptic wipes.

She returned to Newman. ‘Do you have a first-aid kit?’

His eyes were drawn to the gash between her bra and the olive combats. The blood was turning the waistband black.

‘Answer the question, Robert.’

‘Uh … no. I don’t think so. I mean I got some Band-aids…’

‘I found those. Apart from them?’

‘No. Sorry.’

‘It’s not as bad as it looks. Have you thrown up yet?’

‘No.’

‘Then you probably won’t. Not now. Drink some more water. It’ll help.’

She found a small white hand-towel in an airing cupboard and two silk ties in the wardrobe in his bedroom. In the bathroom, she stripped off her combats, washed the blood from her skin, used three antiseptic wipes over the cut, then pressed the folded hand-towel to the wound and secured it with the ties.

As makeshift medicine went, it wasn’t the worst she’d known. Once, in Romania, she’d had to use superglue to secure a deep cut on the back of her right calf. It had been three days before she’d managed to get to a hospital at the port of Constanta. The remedial work carried out by the doctor had been more painful than the original injury.

She pulled on a pair of clean jeans and one of Newman’s shirts, then a thick navy jersey and a leather jacket.

‘Better?’ she asked Newman, when she went back to him.

‘Yeah. I only feel like shit now.’

‘Can you drive?’ His sweaty skin was grey, his breathing short and sharp. Stephanie recognized the symptoms. On the verge of shock, he hadn’t heard her. She repeated the question with added urgency. ‘Can you drive?’

‘I guess so.’

‘Good. We’re leaving.’

‘We?’

‘I need you to drive me.’

‘I thought…’

‘Well, don’t. There isn’t time. I know what I said and I meant it.

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