No stoic, Matt Shore.
When it was out I lay where I was for a while, looking at it, snivelling weakly and feeling the sticky warmth slowly spread, but being basically reassured because I was pretty sure by then that the knife had not gone through into my lung. It must have been deflected by hitting my shoulder blade: it had been embedded to three or four inches, but slanting, not straight in deep. I wasn’t going to die. Or not yet.
After a while I got up on to my knees. I didn’t have all the time in the world. I put my right hand on Carthy-Todd’s desk: pulled myself to my feet.
Swayed. Thought it would be much much worse if I fell down again. Leant my hip against the desk and looked vaguely round the office.
The bottom drawer of the second filing cabinet was open.
Shouldn’t be. I’d shut it.
Open.
I shifted myself off the desk and tried a few steps. Tottered. Made it. Leant gingerly against the wall. Looked down into the drawer.
The cardboard boxes were still there. The empty tin was still there. The small heavy tin wasn’t.
Realised coldly that the future no longer meant simply getting myself to safety out of that office, but getting to the Duke before the bomb did.
It was only four hundred yards… Only…
I’d have to do it, I thought, because if I hadn’t searched the office Carthy-Todd wouldn’t now be in a tearing hurry. When I didn’t turn up to ferry home the White knights, or turn up anywhere again for that matter, except with a stab wound in a ditch, the Duke would say where I had been last… and Carthy-Todd would want to avoid a police investigation like a slug shrinking away from salt. He wouldn’t wait for that. He would obliterate my tracks.
There was something else missing from the office. I didn’t know what it was, just knew it was something. It niggled for a moment, but was gone. Didn’t think it could be important…
Walked with deliberation to the door. Opened it, went outside. Stopped dead at the top of the stairs, feeling dizzy and weak.
Well. Had to get down them somehow. Had to.
The handrail was on the lefthand side. I couldn’t bear to lift my left arm. Turned round, hung on tightly, and went down backwards.
‘There you are,’ I said aloud. ‘You bloody can.’ Didn’t convince myself. It took Carthy-Todd to convince.
I laughed weakly. I was a fully paid up insurer with the Fund. Like to see Carthy-Todd pay my claim… a thousand smackers for a knife in the back. Lovely.
Rolled out into the hot sunlit street as light headed as a blond.
Blond Acey Jones…
Acey Jones was being pushed. Hurried. Knowing I’d found him out but still believing he could retrieve the situation. Still make his two hundred thousand. If he kept his nerve. If he killed the Duke immediately, this afternoon, and somehow made it look like an accident. If he dumped me somewhere later, as he had the Major…
He would think he could still do it. He didn’t know I’d told Colin, didn’t know that Colin knew he was Carthy-Todd…
The empty street had got much longer during the afternoon. Also it wouldn’t stay absolutely still. It shimmered. It undulated. The pavement was uneven. Every time I put my foot down the paving stones reached up and stabbed me in the back.
I passed only an elderly woman on the way. She was muttering to herself. I realised that I was, too.
Half way. I squinted along at the gate of the car park. Had to make it. Had to. And that wasn’t all. Had to find someone to go and fetch the Duke, so that I could explain… explain…
Felt myself falling and put a hand out towards the wall. Mustn’t shut my eyes… I’d be done for… spun heavily against the bricks and shuddered at the result. Rested my head against the wall, trying not to weep. Couldn’t spare the time. Had to get on.
I pushed myself back into a moderately upright walking position. My feet couldn’t tell properly how far it was down to the pavement: half the time I was climbing imaginary steps.
Weird.
Something warm on my left hand. I looked down. My head swam. Blood was running down my fingers, dripping on to the pavement. Looked up again, along to the course. Head swam again. Didn’t know if it was concussion or heat or loss of blood. Only knew it reduced the time factor. Had to get there.