him; he gently lifted Nordstrom’s arm and started to wind the bandage round it. “That was lucky. That could’ve been—”
Matasuntha cleared her throat loudly; Call-me-Bill looked up and noticed Theo for the first time. He froze for a moment, hedgehog-in-headlights fashion, then smiled and said, “Hi.”
“Um,” Theo said. “Is there anything—?”
“No, everything’s under control, thanks.” Call-me-Bill lifted the arm so that Matasuntha could fasten the bandage with a safety pin. “One of our guests has been in the wars a bit. You’ve met Mr Nordstrom, haven’t you?”
“Um.”
Mr Nordstrom lifted his head a little, groaned, “Good evening”, and appeared to pass out. Theo tried to reply, but all that came out was a tiny squeak.
“Poor fellow slipped and cut himself on the bottle he was carrying,” Call-me-Bill said. “Still, no harm done. He’ll be right as rain in no time.”
The pool of blood on the floor was half a metre square. “Ah,” Theo said. “That’s all right, then. Are you sure there’s nothing I can—?”
“No, no, we’re fine, you go on back upstairs and have a good rest.” Call-me-Bill lifted his bright red hands and looked round for something to wipe them on. Matasuntha obliged with a towel. “Remember, breakfast’s at seven to ten thirty in the kitchen. You know where that is, don’t you? If not, ask Mattie, she’ll show you the way.” Matasuntha nodded and smiled brightly; she had blood on her cheek, like minimalist war paint.
“Right,” Theo said. “I’ll, um—”
“Yes, that’s the ticket.” All three of them were looking at him, not moving, clearly waiting for him to go away. “See you in the morning.”
“Sweet dreams,” Matasuntha said, and the woman he didn’t know gave him what, if a smile was a sandwich, would have been the filling. He backed away towards the door he’d just come through. Mr Nordstrom came round and groaned, but they didn’t seem to have noticed. It was as though they were trying to push him through the door using only their eyes.
Theo could take a hint, particularly when bludgeoned round the head with it. He turned, pushed the door open, and walked through it. Then he stopped and held perfectly still.
“Right,” he heard Call-me-Bill snap, “on three. Mattie, get his feet. Dora, you got his head? Ready? One, two—”
Another horrible groan, then Call-me-Bill said, “It’s all right, nearly there”, followed by loud shuffling noises and the sound of a chair being knocked over. “Steady,” Call-me-Bill warned someone. “And for crying out loud, somebody clear up that glass.”
More shuffling; then Theo heard Mr Nordstrom moaning, “It was supposed to be Paris and it was Hanoi, didn’t stand a chance,” before Matasuntha cut him short with, “It’s all right, we’ve got you,” and someone kicked open a door.
Theo went up to his room, shut the door, looked to see if there was a lock or a bolt (there wasn’t) and dragged the chair across to wedge under the handle. He wasn’t a doctor (well, he was, but not of medicine), but he had an idea that it’s gone straight through and out the other side, and it’s missed the bone wasn’t how you described an injury from a splinter of broken glass. Also, he remembered, now that he came to think of it, there hadn’t been any kind of a stain on the carpet where the fragments of broken bottle lay, which suggested to him that the bottle had been empty. But, then, around here weren’t they all?
Gunshot wounds, he recalled suddenly, had to be reported to the police, by law; but not nasty nicks you got off smashed bottles. That, he told himself, could well be part of an explanation that might eventually make some sort of sense. Paris and Hanoi, on the other hand, were beyond him entirely.
Clove of garlic, he thought. Even if Mr Nordstrom had got himself shot up in the course of some illegal activity, and Call-me-Bill, Matasuntha and the unidentified woman were in it up to their necks, it was still nothing at all to do with him. That, evidently, was how they wanted him to see it, he was only too happy to indulge them, and, really, there was nothing else to say on the subject. He glanced at his watch; three minutes past six. A little earlier than his usual bedtime, but it had been a rather wearing day, one way or another. He groped on the floor for the plastic carrier bag that held all his earthly possessions and found his copy of Greenidge and