He shuddered for a moment, then fell sideways as if he had been pushed, blood pouring from a wound in his leg. Rosalind looked back at her attacker as he stood there, pulling at the arrow that was sticking out from him, blood splashing onto the ground. With an agonising look of pain he succeeded, but only at the cost of opening a jagged, bloody wound as the barbed end tore through his flesh. He wavered, now very unsteady on his feet, but focused on Rosalind lying on the ground. He still had the knife in his hand, and with uncertain steps he began to come towards her.
There was a shout in the distance from the bushes. Antros was hurrying towards them, as he was afraid of hitting Rosalind if he fired again, but he was too far away to reach them in time. If Rosalind got up and ran for safety, she would get a knife in her back, without a doubt.
So she did the opposite. With one almighty effort of will she launched herself forward and cannoned into Chang as he advanced towards her.
It was enough, but she paid a price. The weakened Chang toppled backwards into the light, but not before he made a desperate stab with his knife into Rosalind’s side. She screamed out in pain as a pair of hands grabbed her from behind and prevented her from following him through.
With one strong movement Antros all but threw her to one side and she fell heavily onto the ground. He stepped back, pulled another arrow from the sheath, metal-tipped like the first, strung it and pulled back. With one smooth movement, he aimed directly at the shadow on the other side and released it.
‘Look out!’ Rosie cried, and pushed Lytten to the left just as he tried to push her to the right. The result was that neither moved. Both crouched down fearfully and glanced towards the pergola. As the arrow entered the light, there was a sharp bang and fizzing, and Lytten’s cellar was plunged into total darkness. Not only had the machine evidently closed down, it had also short-circuited the entire house. Chang was screaming in agony in the darkness, which at least gave Lytten something to do. Taking a box of matches out of his pocket, he carefully found his way to the fuse box in the corner by the stairs.
‘Come and hold this, will you?’ he said. Her hands were trembling. ‘Steady,’ he said in a surprisingly calm voice. ‘Ignore Mr Chang. We can’t help him until we can see what we are doing. Concentrate on holding the match still.’
She managed, just, and the match — several of them, one after another — gave enough light for Lytten to extract the fuse, find the wire and repair it. Then he pushed down the main switch and the dim light bulb hanging from the centre of the room came on again.
‘Thank heavens for that,’ he said. ‘Now, go upstairs and phone an ambulance. This poor man needs to get to a hospital. Go on.’
He almost pushed her up the stairs, and then began to deal with Chang. It was a nasty-looking wound, but Lytten — whose eye was more expert than he liked — reckoned that it was not mortal, as long as the bleeding could be staunched. He ran upstairs and got some clean cloth, then knelt by the injured man and pressed hard, reassuring him with touching gentleness as he waited.
Rosie did a good job. The ambulance came swiftly, and Chang was taken off their hands after some emergency first aid as he lay on the dirty cellar floor. He was all but unconscious from the shock and pain, but at least it meant he had fallen silent.
‘How the hell did this happen?’ the driver asked. ‘Why is he in fancy dress?’
Good questions. ‘The police will explain,’ Lytten said curtly. ‘I’m afraid I cannot. Or rather, will not. Just do your job.’
Then he turned to Rosie. ‘We have a lot to discuss, but not at the moment. I have something I need to do, and according to Mr Chang it is urgent. You can go home or stay here. Or, if you are up to it, you could accompany Chang and see he is all right. It is entirely your choice.’
Considering that Chang had just tried to stab her, in a manner of speaking, Rosie was understandably reluctant to go anywhere near him. ‘I want to come with you,’ she said in a frightened voice.
‘You can’t. What time is it?’
Lunchtime, she told him. He had been gone for a couple of hours. She’d had a bit of difficulty resetting the machine, and it had taken longer than she thought.
‘Is that all?’
‘How long do you think you were gone?’
‘About six hours. Maybe more.’
‘What are you going to do now?’
‘First of all, I am going to get out of this dressing gown. I look ridiculous. Then I will go to the police station to talk to Detective Sergeant Maltby about Mr Chang. And I need a chat with Angela.’
‘What happened in there? In Anterwold?’
‘Well,’ he said, after a moment to arrange his thoughts into something which passed for coherence, ‘I played the role of a returning deity.’
‘Goodness.’
‘And I had to preside over a trial to decide who killed Thenald.’
‘Who did you decide had done it?’
‘I didn’t. I didn’t have the faintest idea. Henary figured it out. It was Chang. He is some sort of associate of Angela’s. At least, that’s what he says. Oh, and Angela is a time traveller from the future.’
‘I know that,’ she said, as though it were not so very interesting. ‘How am I? The other me, I mean?’
‘Until Chang intervened you were blossoming, my dear. Healthy, self-confident and rather forceful. You seem quite decided to marry Pamarchon, and he seems suitably enamoured of you, so I’m sure you’ll live happily ever after.’
‘Oh. That’s nice.’
‘Pamarchon is the spitting image of an old student of mine. If he has his character, you will get on very well.’
‘So I don’t want to come back?’
‘No. You and I parted on rather bad terms because of it, I’m afraid. That’s what I need to talk to Angela about.’
‘Henary looks like you, you know.’
‘Yes. I feel a little embarrassed about that. Jay looks remarkably like another student of mine. Gontal is clearly based on an unpleasant chemistry teacher who gave my cat his name. Antros was a corporal in the army during the war. In fact, nearly everybody seems to have been dredged up from my memory. It was very peculiar. Just as well I never met Hitler. I really do think you should go home, by the way.’
‘After all this? Not forgetting the spies, the people being arrested, the blood on the cellar floor? You think I can just go home and do my prep?’
She had a point.
‘Very well. You can sit over the road from the police station and wait, if you really want to.’
It wasn’t hard for Lytten to see Angela at the police station; after a long conversation with Maltby and a phone call or two to London, all objections were waived. In the end, Lytten promised to write a letter of commendation praising Maltby for his intelligence and diligence, Maltby promised to make sure nobody asked too many questions about Chang, and finally Angela was let out. She looked a little tired.
‘Henry! How lovely,’ she said distractedly when the cell door opened.
‘I’m sure. Can we get straight down to business, please?’
‘The Volkov business?’
‘No. The cellar business.’
‘Ah. That.’
‘I’ve just spent nearly six hours in that invention of yours.’
‘Oh, dear. Rosie should not have done that. That was really rash of her. Where is she, by the way?’
‘One is over the road, the other is still in Anterwold. I did my best to persuade her, and Chang tried to use more forceful methods. But she stayed. I gather that may cause you problems.’