Cindy groaned weakly as the policeman who had been dealing with St Zvlkx rushed up with two paramedics at his side.
'You should have told me,' Spike muttered, refusing to look at me, his powerful shoulders quivering slightly as tears rolled down his cheeks.
'I'm so sorry, Spike.'
He didn't reply but moved aside so the paramedics could try to stabilise her.
'Who is she?' asked the policeman. 'In fact, who are you two?'
'SpecOps,' we said in unison, producing our badges.
'And this is Cindy Stoker,' said Spike sadly, 'the assassin known as the Windowmaker and my wife.'
35
What Thursday Did Next
KAINIAN GOVERNMENT TO FUND 'ANTI-SMOTE SHIELD'
Mr Yorrick Kaine yesterday announced plans to set up a defensive network to counter the growing threat of God's wrath unto His creations. Specific details of the 'anti-smote shield' are still classed top secret but defence experts and top theologians have both agreed that a system might be in place within five years. Kaine's followers point to the smoting of the small town of Owestry with a 'ram of cleansing fire' last October and the Rutland plague of toads. 'Both Oswestry and Rutland are wake-up calls to our nation,' said Mr Kaine. 'They may have been sinful but ultimate retribution without due process of law is something that I will not tolerate. In today's modern world where the accepted definition of sin has become blurred we need to protect ourselves against an over-zealous deity keen to promote an outdated set of rules. It is for this reason that we are investing in anti-smote technology.' The 14bn contract will be awarded exclusively to Goliath Weapons. Inc.
The news networks had a field day. The death of St Zvlkx so soon after his resurrection raised a few eyebrows, but the Windowmaker's somewhat bizarre accident while 'on assignment' became a sensation, supplanting even the upcoming Superhoop from the front pages. Incredibly, despite severe internal injuries and a devastating head wound, she didn't die. She was taken to St Septyk's, where they battled to stabilise her. Not from any great sense of moral duty, you understand, but because she could finger the sixty-seven or sixty-eight clients who had paid her to carry out her foul trade, and this was a prize the prosecutors were keen to claim. Within an hour of her coming out of surgery, three attempts by underworld bosses had been made to silence her for good. She was moved to the secure ward at the Kingsdown home for the criminally insane, and there she stayed, comatose, attached to a ventilator.
'Spike was right. I should have told him earlier,' I said to Gran, 'or tipped off the authorities or something!'
Granny Next was feeling a lot better today. Although greatly enfeebled by her advanced years, she had actually walked around for a bit this morning. When I arrived she had her reading glasses on and was surrounded by stacks of well-read tomes. The kind of thing one generally reads for study, and rarely for pleasure.
'But you didn't,' she replied, looking over the top of her spectacles, 'and your father knew you wouldn't when he told you.'
'He also said that I would decide whether she lived or died, but he was wrong it's out of my hands now.' I rubbed my scalp and sighed. 'Poor Spike. He's taking it very badly.'
'Where is he?'
'Still being interviewed by SO-9. They got an agent down from London who's been after her for over ten years. I'd be there yet but for Flanker.'
'Flanker?' queried Gran. 'What did he do?'
'He came to thank me for leading SO-14 to a huge stockpile of hidden Danish literature.'
'I thought you were trying not to help them?'
I shrugged.
'So did I. How was I to know the Danish underground really were using the Australian Writers' Guild as a depository?'
'Did you tell them it was Kaine who had paid her to kill you?'
'No,' I said, looking down. 'I don't know who I can trust and the last thing I need is to be taken into protective custody or anything. If I'm not at the touchline tomorrow for the Superhoop, the Neanderthals won't play.'
'But there is good news, surely?'
'Yes,' I said, brightening somewhat. 'We got some Danish books out of the country, Hamlet is on the mend and I got Landen back.'
Gran stared at me and lifted my face with her hand.
'For good''
I looked down at my wedding ring.
'Twenty-four hours and counting.'
'They did the same to me.' Gran sighed, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes with a bony hand. 'We were very happy for over forty years until he was taken away again this time in a more natural and inevitable way. And that was over thirty years ago.'
She fell silent for a moment, and to distract her I told her about St Zvlkx, his death and his Revealments, and how little of it made any sense. Time-travelling paradoxes tended to make my head spin.
'Sometimes,' said Gran, holding up the cover of the Swindon Evening Globe, 'the facts are all in front of us we just have to get them in the right order.'
I took the picture and stared at it. It had been taken a few seconds after the piano stool fell on Cindy. I hadn't realised how far the wreckage of the Steinway had scattered. A little way down the road the lonely figure of Zvlkx was still lying on the pavement, abandoned in the drama.
'Can I keep this?'
'Of course. Be careful, my dear remember that your father can't warn you of every single one of your potential demises invulnerability is reserved only for superheroes. The croquet final is far from won and anything can happen in the next twenty-four hours.'
I thanked her for her kind words, plumped up her pillows for her and then departed.
'A Neanderthal defence?' repeated Aubrey and Alf when I found them taking 'pegging out' practice at the croquet stadium. They had threatened to fire me if I didn't tell them what I was up to.
'Of course, any team would spend millions trying to get a Neanderthal on the side but they just won't do it.'
'I've already got them. You can't pay them and I really don't know how they will work as a team with humans I get the feeling that they'll be a team of their own within your team.'
'I don't care,' said Aubrey, leaning on his mallet and sweeping a hand in the direction of the squad. 'I was fooling myself. Biffo's too old, Smudger has a drink problem and Snake is mentally unstable. George is okay and I can handle myself but a fresh crop of talent has infused the Whackers' team. They'll be fielding people like "Bonecrusher" McSneed.'
He wasn't kidding. A mysterious benefactor probably Goliath had given a vast amount of money to the Whackers. Enough for them to buy almost anyone they wanted. Goliath were taking no chances that the seventh Revealment would be fulfilled.
'So we're still in the game with five Thais?'
'Yes,' said Aubrey with a smile, 'we're still in the game.'
I dropped in to see Mum on the way home, ostensibly to take Hamlet and the dodos round to Landen's place. I found my mother in the kitchen with Bismarck, who seemed to be in the middle of telling her a joke.
'. . . and then the white horse he says: "What, Erich?'"
'Oh, Herr B!' said my mother, giggling and slapping him on the shoulder. 'You are a wag!'
She noticed me standing there.
'Thursday! Are you okay? I heard on the radio there was some sort of accident involving a piano . . .'
'I'm fine, Mum, really.' I stared coldly at the Prussian Chancellor, who, I had decided, was taking liberties with my mother's affections. 'Good afternoon, Herr Bismarck. So, you haven't sorted out the Schleswig-Holstein question yet?'
'I am waiting still for the Danish prime minister,' replied Bismarck, rising to greet me, 'but I am growing impatient.'