Comes the Dark Stranger. Jack Higgins

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       He was drowning in a dark pool. The hands of the damned were pulling him down, but he kicked and struggled and fought his way to the surface. There was an agonizing pain in his head. He tried to scream, but when he opened his mouth, water rushed in. And then a faint light appeared. It grew brighter and brighter until suddenly, he broke through to the surface and breathed again.

      He was lying on his back in a pool of water beside several overflowing dustbins. The water was filthy and greasy and he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them again he saw that he was in a narrow alley with walls of slimy brick on either side, faintly illuminated by the diffused light of a street lamp that stood in the main road a few feet away.

      It was raining heavily and the rain felt cool and clean on his face and yet the drops stung him and he couldn’t think why. He couldn’t remember who he was or how he came to be lying on his back in an alley or why his face hurt when the raindrops splashed against it.

      When he tried to sit up he found that his wrists were handcuffed together and there were no shoes on his feet. For some curious reason this didn’t bother him. He wasn’t alarmed – just slightly puzzled. He frowned and tried to concentrate. It was no good – his mind remained a blank and he became aware of a steady, throbbing pain in his head, slightly above his right eye.

      He shifted his shoulders and felt the water seeping through his jacket, cold, sharp and bitter as death. He rolled over and tried to get to his feet, but he hadn’t the strength and his whole body shrieked its agony through a thousand tortured nerves.

      He reached clumsily with both hands for the edge of one of the bins and heaved himself upright. For a moment he stood there swaying and then he was conscious of a terrible pain in his stomach and he leaned against the wall and was violently sick.

      As he turned away from the wall, he lurched into another dustbin. There was a shriek as from a lost soul in hell and a cat sprang from amongst the refuse and disappeared into the gloom. In its flight, it dislodged the dustbin lid, which hit the cobbles with a clatter, rocking backwards and forwards.

      The sound resounded from the walls of the narrow alley, mingling with the echoes of the cat’s awful cry – and then he was afraid. He remembered who he was and how he had come to be lying, handcuffed and unconscious in an alley and he remembered the most important fact of all. Someone had been murdered and the way things looked, he was the killer.

      Panic flickered inside him and he moved along the alley, away from the main road, hobbling painfully in his stockinged feet. He turned a corner and found himself standing under an ancient gas lamp, bracketed to the wall above his head. On the opposite side of the alley there was a door with a decaying sign above it that said: H. JOHNSON AND SON – PANEL BEATERS.

      He moved to the door quickly, but he was wasting his time. It was padlocked with stout chains at top and bottom. A few feet away there was a window, and he quickly pushed his elbow through the glass and fumbled for the catch. A moment later he was standing inside in the warm darkness.

      A little light filtered through the window from the gas lamp outside and he moved forward cautiously, eyes probing the gloom. He was in what was obviously the workshop. Sheets of metal were standing against one wall and damaged car doors, wings and fenders littered the floor. He moved towards the bench that stood in the centre of the room and a sudden thrill of excitement moved through him as he saw a large guillotine of the type used to cut metal, bolted firmly to one end of the bench.

      He slipped his arms under the knife and positioned the steel links that held the handcuffs together over the cutting edge of the base. He held his wrists as far apart as the handcuffs would allow and arched his body over the handle of the blade. Sweat trickled down his forehead and he took a deep breath and pressed downwards sharply. The knife went through the metal link as easily as wire through butter and he stepped back, his hands free.

      There were some metal lockers in one corner of the room and he examined them quickly. Most of them were padlocked, but one opened to his touch. Inside he found a tin mug, some greasy overalls and a pair of steel-capped industrial boots. He sat on the edge of the bench and pulled them on. They were a size too large, but he quickly laced them up and moved back to the window.

      It was quiet outside and for a moment he listened to the rain drumming into the ground and the faint, faraway sounds of traffic in the main road, before he swung a leg over the sill and scrambled out into the alley.

      He pulled the window down and a voice said harshly from the darkness. ‘Hold it right there!’

      A young constable moved into the lamplight, rain streaming from his cape, and reached out towards him. He moved slightly, the light falling directly on to him, and the constable stood quite still. His face turned yellow and sickly in the lamplight, and there was sudden fear in his eyes. ‘My God, Martin Shane!’ he said.

      Shane