No One Loves a Policeman by Guillermo Orsi, Nick Caistor

beat your brains out. I’m going back to town tomorrow, you can stay here doing this crappy job, and see where it gets you.” He was still protesting as the two of them headed back toward the darkened house.
    I lay flat on the ground for a while longer, covered in mud and with the rain beating down. If I stayed like that, in a couple of hours I would be putting down roots. As soon as I thought the danger was over, I stood up stiffly.
    At least I had learned something. The muscular but polite gentlemen were either police or army, and they did not seem to be on an official mission. And one of them was so jumpy he was ready to fire on anything that moved without identifying itself.
    I edged back toward the house, this time heading straight for the small bathroom window. It was big enough for me to wriggle through if I could remember the Houdini tricks I learned long ago in the circus run by my uncle, a wandering artist and unforgettable magician. For me he was like a human porthole who allowed me a glimpse of other worlds, even though I did not choose to explore them when I grew up.
    I jumped up at the window and hung from the sill for what seemed like an endless minute. My muscles were no longer used to this kind of exercise, and I was afraid I would slide off, but instead I discovered that inside each one of us there exist, like veins of mineral in a gold mine, reserves of energy that we only need sufficient conviction to summon up.
    At the age of seventy, my uncle could not only still free himself from a mass of chains in under five minutes, to the delight and applause of his public, but was also capable of making love twice in a fortnight, as his fourth wife told me. She was thirty years younger than him and a trapeze artist.
    I thought of my uncle and hauled myself silently and easily into the bathroom.

    It would be simpler getting out—unless I was discovered, that is. The floor of the bathroom was higher than the ground outside, so jumping out in an emergency would not take so much effort, especially as I would probably be impelled by the desire to save my skin.
    I opened the bathroom door stealthily, and slipped into a corridor. The only light was a feeble glow at the far end of the passageway. I edgedmy way down until I came to a small living room where the gentleman who had killed the dog was yawning like a hippopotamus and scratching at his crotch ostentatiously. Perhaps he had crab lice. There was not much light, but even if there had been, I was sure his face would have shown no sign of remorse for his stupid, senseless act.
    I crept back halfway down the corridor, where another, wider passage led to more rooms. I finally decided to switch on the torch.
    The first room I went into had no roof. A fine drizzle fell onto a sideboard that was the only piece of furniture. Portraits of somebody or other’s ancestors hung on the walls. I looked in the sideboard drawers, but they were empty. The next room I went into was similarly rundown, but had more furniture: a bed with the frame leaning against the headboard, a bedside table, another, smaller sideboard. It was raining in here, too, and the sideboard was also empty.
    I thought I could hear voices, so switched the torch off before making my way toward the third room. I held my breath as I stepped inside, worried that one of the floorboards might creak and give me away. This room did have a roof over it, so there was no drizzle inside. I could not hear voices now, only two people breathing at a steadily increasing rhythm.
    I stepped back out of the room. I hate being a peeping Tom, even if in this case I could not see a thing. Pornographic spectacles have never excited me. Pathetic exhibitionists, if you ask me.
    Instead, I went down the corridor and into the last room. This was another living room, bigger than the others, with an oval table and chairs, and a glass-fronted dresser with enough crockery for a decent dinner service. What a strange place, I