It was worse than I'd thought, the waiting. There was nothing to go on: no means of orientation. He was only a man but he was invisible and inaudible and these were the attributes of a phantom and my scalp was raised. It needn't be true that he was where I thought he was: somewhere in front of me where my hands could get at him. Even in the dark there's comfort if the enemy can be faced: the real dread is of being taken from behind.

That was where he came for me: from behind. We hadn't touched; we had simply come so close that the instincts were triggered and the nerves galvanised and I was already in a throat-lock with my knees buckling a flat kick before I could hook at him but my hands were free and I caught him and reached his thumb as we pitched down, breaking the hold while he used his foot again and missed and tried again and connected a fraction too late, his breath grunting as I forced him over. We fought close, neither wanting to lose the other in the unnerving dark. My shoulder hit the wall and I used the chance, going down low and recoiling against him, but the momentum wasn't enough and he deadened the spring and forced me into a spine-bending yoshida that paralysed the arms. Then some fool came in and switched the light on.

Kimura helped me up with his usual courtesy and we touched palms and looked for our towels.

'It was good,' he said.

'No,' I said, 'it wasn't.' I wiped at the sweat, trying not to worry. I shouldn't have let him throw that deadly yoshida so soon, when he was fresh enough to follow it through; it had left the plexus exposed and he could have killed me within the next five seconds if he'd wanted to, a straight chop to the heart from under the ribs. It was all right here in the gym but it wouldn't be all right one day in some back-street in Buenos Aires or wherever the hell I'd be when it happened again. 'Can't you,' I asked Stevens, 'shut that bloody door?'