Klempner

In one hand, I hold a single copper strand. In the other, a thread of brown.

My body freezes as my mind races through the possibilities.

I left my hotel room several hours earlier, slicking a hair into place over the crack between door and frame as I left. On my return, a hair was still in place and I entered my room assuming all was normal.

Now, however, in my left hand, I hold a hair just plucked from my own scalp: the mousy-brown shade of my current identity.

In the right hand, I hold the hair which dropped from my hotel room door as I returned, and which on casual inspection, I had taken to be the one I slicked into place as I left the room earlier.

But the right-hand hair is red.

And now I look at it, I recognise that shade: a deep burnished copper-auburn that many women aspire to, but few have.

But Mitch has it. Jenny too;

Could it come from one of them?

Probably, yes.

Jenny…

Juliana, or at least her cat’s-paws Baxter and Finchby, had Jenny unconscious as a prisoner for some while. They even trimmed a lock of her pubic hair and sent it to James along with her underwear. Plucking a few hairs from her scalp would never have been noticed.

So, this could be Jenny’s hair.

On the other hand, it might just be the hair of some local woman lucky enough to have the shade.

Does it matter? Where it comes from?

Or is it just the message that’s important?

Juliana and her games…

My hand is shaking, the copper hair vibrating between my fingers like a metronome.

Calm down…

Think…

Breathing deliberately deeply, I let out air. Take it in again. And once more.

My hand steadies once more.

How long have I been standing here? Frozen by surprise and indecision…

A minute? Two?

to get the hell out of

re-entry to my room, I sling essentials

Must contact Dakho…

Get a replacement…

around the

… Anything else important?

too. It’s all just

place

… That’s it, then…

making a u-turn, I head for the

the threshold, I

Juliana really have stopped

hair… A warning

Only that?

It doesn’t ring true.

There’s surely something else.

It’s under five minutes since I made my discovery, and everything inside screams that I

And Now…

Fuck!

I’ve got to know…

gun

… then the terrace…

… the bedroom…

… seeking… seeking what?

first hasty charge around the apartment might

find it in

consistent at least. Rigged up in the same way as when

the knees to squat

technique has long been used as a booby-trap in situations where, typically, the intention is not to kill, but to maim. A corpse can be buried with honours. But a companion on a stretcher, carrying what’s left of his genitalia in

could contain enough explosive to blow

head,

the rear stairs, calling by the laundries in the basement. Dumping my suit, a rummage through the baskets produces some sort of uniform; one-piece, plain navy-blue, perhaps for a plumber or other

back in place, whistling a merry little tune, I exit the hotel via the service

shady niche. There’s space for a dozen trash bins, but not all are taken. Ducking into the gap, I’m out of sight. One

Now what?

with my

like a complete fucking

believed I was safely hidden behind my fake ID. Now I’m going to have to change again. When the hotel discovers ‘Harry Hughes’ has

not far from the hotel. I need to get further away than this, but there’s no point running at

Somewhere to stay?

To hide?

To think…

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