gave way.
Fuller’s arms windmilled frantically in a desperate effort to defy gravity. His body bowed forwards, and it looked for just a second as if he was going to recover himself, then his feet went out from under him. Will lunged forward, hurling himself down, and just caught Fuller’s disappearing hand as he hit the floor.
The shock damn near pulled his own arm out of its socket. He skidded forward, dragged by Fuller’s dead weight, sliding fast to the gaping gap in the banisters, and the two-storey fall beyond.
Will flailed for something to hold on to, and found the nearest surviving baluster with his free hand, a table-leg with his feet. He gripped onto both for dear life, and his slide stopped with his head and shoulders hanging over the dark void below.
Fuller swung from his hand, yelling. He still held the Webley in his other hand.
“Drop the gun!” Will bellowed. “Drop it or I drop you! Now!”
Fuller let go of the Webley. It bounced off the lower balcony, and hit the floor a long way down.
“Pull me up!” Fuller flailed his free arm in a fruitless effort to reach the balcony edge. The movement pulled Will another inch closer to certain depth.
“Stop struggling!” he snarled. “You’ll have us both off!”
“Pull me up!”
Will’s muscles were screaming. Fuller was over six foot, well built, and hanging off an arm that hadn’t enjoyed recent proceedings as it was. “Calm down. See if you can get your other hand up. Grab the edge.”
Fuller tried, straining upwards. The effort dragged Will forward again. “Fuck! Stop!”
Running footsteps. “Will!” Kim shouted.
“Get up here and hold me down!”
He couldn’t look round, couldn’t afford to concentrate on anything but his feet, painfully flexed around the table-legs, and his hands, one on the baluster, one savagely gripped by Fuller’s sweaty fingers, and on his breath. Breathe in, breathe out. One. Two. He could hold on till ten. Kim would be here by ten. Four. Five. He would get to ten breaths. Six.
He didn’t even know why he was doing this for a man he’d been prepared to stab two minutes ago, except that it would have been inhuman to let him fall. He just held on, to the count of ten and then one more breath after that, and then there was a weight on his back and thighs straddling him, anchoring him to the floor.
“Hold on. Let me grab the banister.” He felt Kim brace over him. “All right. I’ve got you.”
“Fuller!” Will forced the word out through his tense throat. “Get ready to take my other hand.”
He released his grip on the baluster and extended his newly free hand. Fuller reached up, the shift of weight putting enough strain on Will’s shoulder that he had to bellow the pain out, and grabbed it.
Better. His overtaxed right shoulder was aflame and the left one wasn’t liking this either, but at least the heavy bastard was more evenly distributed, albeit crushing his hands. “Get hold of my wrists. My wrists, damn you!”
“Get me up.” Fuller was blotchy, sweaty-faced with fear, too afraid to shift his fingers. “Pull me up!”
“No,” Kim said.
“What?” Will and Fuller said in chorus.
“Information first, rescue later. Who’s Capricorn?”
“Pull me up!”
“Capricorn,” Kim said implacably. “And talk fast. He can’t hold you forever.”
That was truly shitty, the sort of shitty you got from intelligence officers. If Kim hadn’t been sitting on his back as ballast, Will would have consigned him to the devil and pulled Fuller up anyway. As it was, any sort of silly buggers would lead to one or both of them going over the drop. “Kim—” he snarled.
“Who is Capricorn?” Kim said again. “Quick.”
“I don’t know!”
“Drop him.” Kim spoke with icy command.
“No!” Fuller thrashed like a fish, fingers digging into Will’s hands. Will yelled aloud.
“Capricorn. A name.”
“I don’t know his name!”
“Then you’re no use to me.”
“Kim!” Will was damned if he was letting go, he would not, but his muscles were exhausted and in a few moments more he wouldn’t have the choice.
“They’ll kill me!” Fuller shrieked.
“So will the fall,” Kim pointed out. “Do it my way and you can run with a head start. Name.”
“I don’t know!”
Fuller’s sweaty fingers slipped a half-inch. Will forced his own grip tighter by sheer bloody-mindedness, defying the dreadful ache of failing strength. “Just tell him something, you arsehole!”
“I shall!” Fuller screamed, rushing the words out in panic. “I shall, I shall—”
Kim’s thighs tightened on Will’s waist. “Let’s get him up.”
It wasn’t easy with Will’s muscles turned to