Vulture is a Patient Bird

The Chinese girl was small, compact with heavy buttocks which Fennel liked, but she was as animated as a side of beef. She acted merely as a receptacle for his lust and when the unsatisfactory union was over, Fennel, with half a bottle of whisky inside him, dulling his senses, slept, but Fennel only ever slept slightly below the level of unconsciousness. He had always led a dangerous life and had trained himself never to become entirely unconscious, no matter how much he drank. He came awake to find the girl, still naked, her ivory skin lighted by the street light

Coming through the uncurtained window, helping herself from his well stuffed wallet.

Fennel was off the bed and had hit her before he was fully awake. His fist smashed into her face, snapping her head back and she went down, his money falling from her small hand, her eyes rolling back.

Fennel snarled at her, then began to collect the money. It was only when he had thrown on his clothes and had stuffed his wallet into his hip pocket that he realized something was wrong. He bent over the still body and a chill crawled up his spine. He lifted her head by her thick hair and grimaced as the head rolled horribly on the shoulders. His savage, violent blow had broken her neck.

He looked at his watch. He had two hours before he took off for London. He left the room, shutting the door and walked down the stairs to where an old Chinaman was seated at the desk to check clients in and out. He knew he would have to pay for his freedom.

"I'm leaving by junk in twenty minutes," he lied. "The whore's dead. What's it going to cost?"

The yellow wrinkled face showed nothing: a parchment map of old age.

"One thousand dollars," the old man said. "I have to call the police in an hour,"

Fennel showed his teeth in a savage snarl.

"Old man, I could wring your neck . . . that's too much."

The Chinaman lifted his shoulders.

"Then five hundred dollars and I call the police in half an hour."

Fennel gave him the thousand dollars. He had been in Hong Kong long enough to know a bargain was a bargain. He had to have at least an hour to get clear and he had got clear.

Lying in his bed, watching the reflected light making patterns on the opposite wall, he remembered the girl. If she had been more responsive, he wouldn't have hit her so hard. Well, he told himself without conviction, she had deserved what she had got.

The male prostitute he had been unlucky enough to run into in a dirty, evil smelling alley in Istanbul, also got what he deserved. Fennel had come off a ship to spend a few hours in the city before going on to Marseilles. He had brought three kilos of gold from India for a man who was paying well: a fat, elderly Turk who wanted the gold as a bribe. Fennel had done the deal, collected the money and then found a girl to spend the night with. Thinking about her now, Fennel realized she had been smart. She had got him drunk and when the time came for them to share the hotel bed, he had been too drunk to bother with her. He had slept three hours, waking to find her gone, but at least she hadn't been a thief. Livid with frustrated rage, and nearly sober, Fennel had started back to his ship. Here, in this sleazy alley, he had met a perfumed boy: handsome with liquid black eyes and a sly, insinuating smile, who had importuned him. Fennel had vented his rage on him, smashing his head against the wall, leaving a big red stain where the wall had been dirty white.

A woman, peering out of her window, had seen the act of brutal violence and had begun to scream. Fennel got back to his ship, but it was only when the ship sailed that he considered himself safe.

Fennel often lived with his ghosts. He kept telling himself that the dead had no part in his life, but they persisted in his mind. In moments like this, when he was sexually frustrated, and alone, his past violence kept on intruding.

This third murder haunted him more than the other two. He had been hired by a wealthy Egyptian to open a safe belonging to a merchant to whom the Egyptian had given bonds as security for a big loan. Fennel understood these bonds were forgeries and they could be discovered at any moment: the job was urgent.

He had got into the palatial house easily enough and had settled down in front of the safe to open it. The time was 02.45 hrs. and the household was asleep.

The safe was old-fashioned and Fennel had trouble in opening it. As he finally got the safe door open, his tools scattered around him, the door leading into the room where he was pushed open.

Fennel snapped off his torch, grabbed up a short steel bar with which he had been working and spun around.

A shadowy figure stood in the doorway, then the light went on.