Blame The Dead

Twenty-two

Outside, the night was full of thick, soggy snowflakes that drifted prettily in the lamplight and splattered into ice water the moment they touched you. I turned up my fur collar, shoved my chin down into it, and headed for the Park.

According to the map, it was at the end of the street, the street itself being the Ole Bull's Plass, and Ole himself – to judge from the statue – had been a violinist or maybe composer. I mean, how do you do a statue of a composer anyway? Have him looking soulfully upwards and he could have been the man who discovered meteorology or the eighth deadly sin, and we all know they composed on pianos anyhow. But show me a town council that can afford a statue of that.

It was a good, wide street lined with big student cafés that looked warm and safe behind the steamed-up windows, and only me outside. A couple of motor-cycle cops, with little green lamps besides their headlights, paused to give me suspicious glances, and then zoomed away ahead. I slowed down so as not to lose Draper. He was supposed to be following me to make sure nobody else did.

The Park – again according to the map – was a square job mostly filled with an artificial lake, but touching on main roads at every corner. That would be why they'd chosen it, of course: a selection of getaways if I happened to bring the Riot Squad with me. Though if the snow got any thicker that wouldn't mean much. And it was thickening, all right.

I waited at the main road before the Park itself, and Draper wandered up, shook his head without looking at me, and went ahead into the billowing curtains of snow ahead. I followed slower. The lights of the town faded behind me and the snowflakes went from silver-white to a vague grey to invisible wet fingerprints in the darkness.

The timing was tricky. I wanted Draper arriving at the rendezvous about a minute after I did, and from the opposite direction; they might expect somebody to be following me, but I hoped they wouldn't think of a collision course. To get there, he'd have to walk all around the lake, but the exercise would do him good.

I found the lake myself by almost tripping over a low iron railing; beyond it was a slope of snow-speckled grass and then the glint of black water. I turned right and slowly followed the path around. Now I was really alone, just me and the Whirling snow like dead kisses on my face and dribbling icily down my neck. I'd done ten paces-and twenty-and thirty…

A figure, waiting, loomed up ahead; just a dark shape with an odd blurriness to the face. I stopped and something poked into my back.

A voice said, 'Hands high, please.' Then, over my shoulder to the first shape. 'He's clear; nobody following.'

I held the Bertie Bear envelope high in my right hand and stared at the vague figure in front while other hands explored my clothes.

'Do you bring your nylon stockings all the way from London, or do you find the Norwegian ones do just as well?'

'Shut up, Card.' Then, more relaxed, 'No gun, friend? Are you slipping or learning?'

'I'm just running out of them.'

He chuckled into the back of my neck. 'All right, I'll take it now.'

'Hold on. I want some sort of guarantee that I'm in the clear with the police.'

'I told you that's bloody nonsense. Hand it over.' Yes, I was sure I knew that voice.

'You'll get me into trouble, losing this.'

'Don't worry, chummie. You'll never hear of it again. Now -give!'

I'd stalled as long as I could; wherever Draper was, I had to act now or for ever hold my peace. I lowered my right hand slowly; the knife was already in my palm, the blade hidden inside the envelope. I twitched it; the envelope fell off and he instinctively ducked to catch it. I whipped around.

There were a stocking-masked face and a gun – but it had wandered off its aim. I slashed for it; the knife bounced off metal, sliced flesh, and stopped on bone.

He screamed and threw himself away from me – but didn't drop the gun. Instead, the torn envelope finally ripped wide open and Bertie Bear came bouncing free.

I jumped, trying to smother that gun hand, and he kicked as he fell and got me on the knee.

Behind me, another pistol exploded, close enough to light the snowflakes in the air around me. The man on the ground yelled,'Don't kill him!'

I turned as fast as I could, but when I saw the gun it was already swinging. I did the only thing left – tried to throw my head in the direction it was about to be thrown anyhow. But it caught me just above the right ear and I tripped on the railing and did half a cartwheel down the snowy grass bank and ended spread on my face just short of the lake.

And there I let things rest for a bit.

My vision seemed shattered, actually busted like a mirror so that I saw several versions of anything I looked at. Dimly, I knew the man who'd thumped me was staring at me. Then helping up the one with the cut hand. Then picking up something. And then both of them watching me for a while, and finally vanishing behind the snow.

They must have said something, too, but something else inside my head was screaming far too loud for any outside noise to get in.

I stared at my hand, flat on the grass ahead of me, and gradually all the versions of it faded into one. The sounds inside my head localised themselves to just above my right ear, and when I touched it, there was already a solid lump. But no stickiness, thank God.

About then, Draper appeared above me. 'Are you all right?'

'Of course I'm not bloody all right!' I said through clenched teeth. 'And where were you when the world ended?'

'Watching it. You did all right, Major.' He helped me on to my feet, or thereabouts.

I brushedon some of the snow on my jacket, looked around, and found the knife. It had blood on the tip, which was about all we seemed to have achieved; at a guess, that hand would hurt a lot longer than my head would. Should I tell Vik to watch the hospitals for a man with a cut right hand? And have Vik ask why I was carrying the knife on his patch, and why I hadn't told him about the meeting, and why I could be blackmailed into it… Hell, a professional like that would never go near a hospital.

'Well, that wasn't really worth staying up late for, was it?' I said bitterly. 'I hops you didn't get too cold or wet or anything frightful like that?'

'Don't say such things, Major. He had a gun, that's why I didn't come out. He'd've recognised me.'

It took a long time for the message to find an unoccupied brain cell. 'You mean you recognised one ofthem? In that mask?'

'I'd know that voice anywhere. He worked for Herb for a couple of years. Pat Kavanagh, that was.'