"They said so, but from the blood marks the fuzz think he could be wounded. "
"What about the guns?"
"I do notknow about the guns, Harry. I can't be ringing up Rotherhithe nick asking for details. That would just establish the very connection I'm hoping-despite your assistance-to ' avoid. All I'm giving you is from the radio and the PA tape. But six shots and a man in intensive care, " he added, "makes it reasonably certain that some friend of yours was involved."
Agnes came over and George handed her a gin and tonic.
'Thanks. Our people have been in touch with the police, justchecking to see if there could be a terrorist element. Thatwould be quite normal. They've got the one in hospital down as Hans-Heinz Lemke, but they aren't entirely convinced. They're checking him out. He's about thirty-five, dark, five foot eleven, eleven and a half stone. Shoes made in Germany -West."
"Did they say anything about the guns?" Maxim asked. George gave a heavy sigh.
"There were two left at the scene." She glanced at a piece of paper."A Sauerof 7.65 millimetre calibre and a Walther of short 9 millimetre or.380. Is that right?"
Maxim nodded.
"The Sauerhad been fired, probably twice. The other one wasn't fired. And they've picked 3.38 Special out of Lemke's liver."
"That could be Blagg," Maxim said. "It was a.38 Special he had at Bad Schwarzendorn."
"Oh hooray," George said mournfully.
A vivid light flared outside, bright enough to penetrate the heavy curtains. Everybody waited, but when the tearing bang of thunder came it was still loud enough to make Agnes jump. She didn't like thunder; it was over-dramatic and showy, like tropical plants.
Maxim finished his coffee. "I'd better get going."
Agnes waited for George, but when he stayed quiet, she said: "Harry, Neptune Court and its purlieus will be absolutelycrawling with cops. This is the sortofthingthey really go to town on: an armed man, probably wounded, probably hiding out nearby. They'llsmother that place. "
"I know."
She was about to ask How do you know? and then remembered his tours in Northern Ireland. She looked at George, but he was just pouring himself another glass of port.
"Will you be here?" Maxim asked.
"For a while – if George doesn't mind. "
"Be my guest."
When Maxim had gone, Agnes said: "You didn't eventry to talk him out of it."
George nuzzled his nose into a glass of port. "You haven't been in the Army. "
"I'm glad you've noticed. "
"There's a wounded soldier out there, or he thinks there is. Icouldn't have stopped him with an anti-tank gun. It's the most common form of heroism, risking your life to rescue one of your men. The fact that he's only risking his career – and mine, and the government's – doesn't really make any difference. Not to him, anyway." He gulped his port.
Agnes looked disapprovingly at George's glass. "You're going to have to watch that stuff. We could be in for a long night."
"Why does everybody tell me I ought to watch my drinking when they're all so busy watching it for me? Somebody in Whitehall has to be looking at something else, and it might as well be me."
"Cheer up. Blagg may be dead."
"With our luck, he's probably shot a couple of coppers as well by now." He reached for the decanter. Beyond the curtains, the rain came down with a sudden clatter on the roof of the Ropewalk below.
The pain wasn't so bad, it was the breathlessness, using all his energy to suck another few seconds of life from a chest that seemed to be wrapped in rusty iron bands. He knew he had a hole in one lung, leaking air and blood that put pressure on the other lung. They had taught him that much in the Army. They had also taught him that the first thing to do with a wounded man was clear his breathing. But how did you do it yourself, and clear something deep in your chest? And by now he was far too weak to move, even to sit up. Unless somebody found him soon…
Until then, the only thing to do was endure. Endurance is a soldier's job. A few may turn out to be heroes as well, but a few is all you need; for the rest, what matters is biting down and holding on. The Army had taught him that, too, and the SASacceptance tests had rammed the lesson home by sending him out over the damp Brecon Beacons with a 55~lb Bergen rucksack knowing he had to cover a certain distance in a certain time but not knowing that when he had done it, there wouldn't be the trucks they had promised but a vague assurance of a cup of tea if he kept on marching a few more miles inthatdirection. That was the real test, what they called the 'sickener' factor.
"Fuckyou lot," Blagg had snarled at the officer in charge, and set out to march to the end of the world. Now, it seemed he was almost there.
His senses were fading as his whole existence concentrated on taking in the next breath. He had long since stopped noticing the foul smell inside the little concrete box, or the damp grittiness of the floor against his cheek, and he heard only distantly the rolling crash of thunder. But a few minutes later he heard the rattle of heavy rain on the loose corrugated iron sheet hiding the way in, felt the first trickle of water crawling down the floor, and then remembered how long this place took to drain.
He realised that he was quite likely going to drown. For the first time, the first time in his life, he was horribly and totally afraid.
The rain was smashing itself into a two-foot-high mist above the roadway as Maxim pulled up outside Billy Dann's house. It was semi-detached and mock Tudor, in a quiet suburban street lined with acacia trees and unbroken street lamps. In his slow crawl from the corner as he peered for the right number through the flooding windscreen, it had seemed an odd neighbourhood for the Fight Game: well-weeded drives, well-painted houses, the cars as recommended by Which? and Ratepayers' Association posters in several windows. Maybe he was just wrong about the Fight Game.
Perhaps there had been a hint of the rain slackening; anyway, it did in the minute he waited in the car. He wrapped a short raincoat around himself and ran up the front path.
Dannopened the door himself, looking warm and sticky in a pink short-sleeved shirt and bright green slacks. Maxim hadn't been entirely wrong about the Fight Game.
"Bloodyhell," Dannsaid, "it's you again. Don't they teach you in the Army how to use the telephone?"
"I just wanted a private word. Are you alone?"
"Well, right now, yes, but the wife's -"
"Hop in my car. We'll drive around a bit."
Dannstared. "Are you totallybarmy? I mean you had noticed there's a hurricane going on out here?"
Feeling rather like a flasher, Maxim opened his raincoat to show the revolver pointing vaguely at Dann's crotch. "I'll explain in the car. "
Dannwent wide-eyed and said: "Fucking arseholes," in a reverential sort of voice. Maxim reached around him to pull the front door shut and ushered him down to the car. In the movies they always seemed to make the kidnapped party drive, but Maxim thought about Danndriving his – Maxim's – car into the first acacia while he watched the gun, which seemed to have hypnotised him. It was safer and cheaper to drive one-handed, letting the car steer itself when he changed gear. Why didn't kidnappers choose automatic gearboxes?
When he had turned two corners and gone about a quarter of a mile, he gave Dannthe pistol. "Sorry about that: I just wanted to get you out of the house. Be careful with it, it's loaded."
Dannturned the gun in his hands, still staring at it in the passing flares of street lighting.
Maxim went on: "I'm pretty sure your phone's tapped, your house could be wired, and sornebody'll be watching it. Are youlistening?"
Dannwoke up and handed the gun back. "Here, you take the bloody thing, I don't know anything about guns… Did you mean all that? Why?"
"Oh yes." Maxim tucked the gun away. "Did you hear the news tonight?"
"No, I only listen to the sport. I've got no time for-"
"There's been a shooting in Rotherhithe. "
Dannhesitated, then asked: "You mean Ron."