For:

Bas, Biddy & Liam — my personal chakana

OBE (Order of the Bloody Entrails) to:

Helen Johnstone — the Paucar Wami of publicists

Editors:

Sarah Hodgson — the Ford Tasso of the present

Simon Spanton — the Frank Weld of the past

And all the villacs of the Christopher Little order

In Room 812 of the Skylight Hotel a woman lay close to death. She was sprawled facedown across the bed, naked and lacerated. Her back had been cut to fleshy shreds. Dark blood seeped from the wounds, trickled down her sides and gathered in the folds of the crumpled sheets beneath. A spider crept across her face, sensed death and scuttled away to safety.

A maid entered. A thick-limbed, middle-aged woman. She spotted the blood-drenched body instantly. Anyone else would have shrieked and bolted. But death was nothing new to this lady.

Closing the door gently behind her, she moved closer to the body. A dripping knife lay on the floor close by. She was wearing plastic gloves but didn’t touch it. Instead she stood over the corpse, gazing down appraisingly.

Kneeling, she pressed two fingers against the victim’s neck and checked for a pulse. Nothing. She was about to leave, when…

A slight vibration. She prized an eyelid open. The pupil dilated in the light and when she took her finger away the lid twitched and the woman’s mouth moved a painful fraction.

The maid frowned, then picked up the knife and scanned the wounds. She settled on one near the heart. Leaning over, she prized the flesh apart with her fingers, inserted the tip of the blade and wriggled it around in gentle circles, holding the woman down with her other hand, until she felt the body shiver for the final time.