A small and dark village street was no place to fight someone learned in the ways of Ninjitsu. Fuji might move from shadow to shadow with no noise until she could whisper in my ear that the needle she had just stuck into me was coated in some unpleasant poison. I was also worried about Sophie becoming involved so I stood up, moved to the centre of the road where the little moonlight that there was fell, slipped my coat from my shoulders and onto the ground and spoke:

ME: “Fuji, get out here and suffer my wrath. See if you can take me. I’m going to fuck you terminally up this time.”

Fuji and I had tussled before, once on an oilrig, twice on a narrow suspension bridge and frequently in bed. She was a master assassin who had never been able to terminate me in years of trying and had eventually decided to bed me instead. Which she did with far more success. Since those few sweaty months in Hiroshima she has viewed me as hers, as Bruce-Who-Shall-Not-Poke-Any-Other-Then-Me-Fuji, or ‘Brucie Babes’ said in her curt Japanese tongue. Needless to say, I don’t feel exactly the same and her incessant interruptions to my attempts to woo the few women I have known whom interest me sufficiently, by attacking me without warning, have become ultimately tiresome. Anyway, I digress. We were going to sort this out once and for all.

I whispered:

ME: “Sophia, darling, do not move, stay hidden. Do not watch, keep your head down.”

SOPHIA: “But Bruce…”

ME: “But nothing sweetness. Be silent. This will not take long.”