Come to Grief

Chapter 14

I went home to Aynsford with Charles.

It had been a long evening in Archie’s house. Archie, Davis, Norman and Charles had all wanted details, which I found as intolerable to describe as to live through. I skipped a lot.

I didn’t tell them about Ellis’s games with my hands. I didn’t know how to explain to them that, for a jockey, his hands were at the heart of his existence… of his skill. One knew a horse by the feel of the bit on the reins, one listened to the messages, one interpreted the vibrations, one talked to a horse through one’s hands. Ellis understood more than most people what the loss of a hand had meant to me, and that day he’d been busy punishing me in the severest way he could think of for trying to strip him of what he himself now valued most, his universal acclaim.

I didn’t know how to make them understand that to Ellis the severing of a horse’s foot had become a drug more addictive than any substance invented, that the risk and the power were intoxicating; that I’d been lucky he’d had only a wrench to use on me.

I didn’t know how near he had come in his own mind to irrevocably destroying my right hand. I only knew that to me it had seemed possible that he would. I couldn’t tell them that I’d intensely lived my own nightmare and still shook from fear inside.

I told them only that an adjustable wrench in Yorkshire’s hands had cut my face.

I told them a little about the escape by judo, and all about the boy on Rollerblades and the ice cream cone and catching the bus within sight of Yorkshire and Ellis. I made it sound almost funny.

Archie understood that there was a lot I hadn’t said, but he didn’t press it. Charles, puzzled, asked, ‘But did they hurt you, Sid?’ and I half laughed and told him part of the truth. ‘They scared me witless.’

Davis asked about Ellis’s Shropshire alibi. His colleague, the Crown Prosecutor, was increasingly concerned, he said, that Ellis’s powerful lawyers would prevent the trial from resuming.

I explained that I hadn’t had time to find out at what hour Ellis had arrived at the dance.

‘Someone must know,’ I said. ‘It’s a matter of asking the local people, the people who helped to park the cars.’ I looked at Norman. ‘Any chance of the police doing it?’

‘Not much,’ he said.

‘Round the pubs,’ I suggested.

Norman shook his head.

‘There isn’t much time,’ Davis pointed out. ‘Sid, couldn’t you do it tomorrow?’

Tomorrow, Sunday. On Monday, the trial.

Archie said firmly, ‘No, Sid can’t. There’s a limit… I’ll try and find someone else.’

‘Chico would have done it,’ Charles said.

Chico had undisputedly saved my pathetic skin that day. One could hardly ask more.

Archie’s wife, before she’d driven over to spend the evening with her sister-in-law Betty Bracken, had, it appeared, made a mound of sandwiches. Archie offered them diffidently. I found the tastes of cheese and of chicken strange, as if I’d come upon them new from another world. It was weird the difference that danger and the perception of mortality made to familiar things. Unreality persisted even as I accepted a paper napkin to wipe my fingers.

Archie’s doorbell rang. Archie went again to the summons and came back with a pinched, displeased expression, and he was followed by a boy that I saw with surprise to be Jonathan.

The rebel wings of hair were much shorter. The yellow streaks had all but grown out. There were no shaven areas of scalp.

‘Hi,’ he said, looking around the room and fastening his attention on my face. ‘I came over to see you. The aunts said you were here. Hey, man, you look different.’

‘Three months older.’ I nodded. ‘So do you.’

Jonathan helped himself to a sandwich, disregarding Archie’s disapproval.

‘Hi,’ he said nonchalantly to Norman. ‘How’s the boat?’

‘Laid up for winter storage.’

Jonathan chewed and told me, ‘They won’t take me on an oil rig until I’m eighteen. They won’t take me in the navy. I’ve got good pecs. What do I do with them?’

‘Pecs?’ Charles asked, mystified.

‘Pectoral muscles,’ Norman explained. ‘He’s strong from weeks of water-skiing.’

‘Oh.’

I said to Jonathan, ‘How did you get here from Combe Bassett?’

‘Ran.’

He’d walked into Archie’s house not in the least out of breath.

‘Can you ride a motorbike,’ I asked, ‘now that you’re sixteen?’

‘Do me a favor!’

‘He hasn’t got one,’ Archie said.

‘He can hire one.’

‘But… what for?’

‘To go to Shropshire,’ I said.

I was predictably drowned by protests. I explained to Jonathan what was needed. ‘Find someone — anyone — who saw Ellis Quint arrive at the dance. Find the people who parked the cars.’

‘He can’t go round the pubs,’ Norman insisted. ‘He’s under age.’

Jonathan gave me a dark look, which I steadfastly returned. At fifteen he’d bought gin for a truck-driver’s wife.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Where do I go?’

I told him in detail. His uncle and everyone else disapproved. I took all the money I had left out of my belt and gave it to him. ‘I want receipts,’ I said. ‘Bring me paper. A signed statement from a witness. It’s all got to be solid.’

‘Is this,’ he asked slowly, ‘some sort of test?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK.’

‘Don’t stay longer than a day,’ I said. ‘Don’t forget, you may be asked to give evidence this week at the trial.’

‘As if I could forget.’

He took a bunch of sandwiches, gave me a wide smile, and without more words departed.

‘You can’t,’ Archie said to me emphatically.

‘What do you propose to do with him?’

‘But… he’s…’

‘He’s bright,’ I said. ‘He’s observant. He’s athletic. Let’s see how he does in Shropshire.’

‘He’s only sixteen.’

‘I need a new Chico.’

‘But Jonathan steals cars.’

‘He hasn’t stolen one all summer, has he?’

‘That doesn’t mean…’

‘An ability to steal cars,’ I said with humor, ‘is in my eyes an asset. Let’s see how he does tomorrow, with this alibi.’

Archie, still looking affronted, gave in.

‘Too much depends on it,’ Davis said heavily, shaking his head.

I said, ‘If Jonathan learns nothing, I’ll go myself on Monday.’

‘That will be too late,’ Davis said.

‘Not if you get your colleague to ask for one more day’s adjournment. Invent flu or something.’

Davis said doubtfully, ‘Are you totally committed to this trial? The Pump — or Ellis Quint — they haven’t got to you in any way, have they? I mean… the hate campaign… do you want to back out?’

Charles was offended on my behalf. ‘Of course he doesn’t,’ he said.

Such faith! I said plainly to Davis, ‘Don’t let your colleague back down. That’s the real danger. Tell him to insist on prosecuting, alibi or no alibi. Tell the prosecution service to dredge up some guts.’

‘Sid!’ He was taken aback. ‘They’re realists.’

‘They’re shit-scared of Ellis’s lawyers. Well, I’m not. Ellis took the foot off Betty Bracken’s colt. I wish like hell that he hadn’t, but he did. He has no alibi for that night. You get your colleague to tell Ellis’s lawyers that the Northampton colt was a copycat crime. If we can’t break Ellis’s alibi, copycat is our story and we’re sticking to it, and if you have any influence over your colleague the prosecutor, you make sure he gives me a chance in court to say so.’

Davis said faintly, ‘I must not instruct him to do anything like that.’

‘Just manage to get it dripped into his mind.’

‘So there you are, Davis,’ Archie said dryly, ‘our boy shows no sign of the hate campaign having been successful. Rather the opposite, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Our boy’ stood up, feeling a shade fragile. It seemed to have been a long day. Archie came out into the hall with Charles and me and offered his hand in farewell. Charles shook warmly. Archie lifted my wrist and looked at the swelling and the deep bruising that was already crimson and black.

He said, ‘You’ve had difficulty holding your glass all evening.’

I shrugged a fraction, long resigned to occupational damage. My hand was still a hand, and that was all that mattered.

‘No explanation?’ Archie asked.

I shook my head.

‘Stone walls tell more,’ Charles informed him calmly.

Archie, releasing my wrist, said to me, ‘The British Horseracing Board wants you to double-check some of their own members for loyalty. Ultra-secret digging.’

‘They wouldn’t ask me.’ I shook my head. ‘I’m not the new people’s idea of reliable.’

‘They asked me,’ he said, the eyes blazing with amusement. ‘I said it would be you or nobody.’

‘Nobody,’ I said.

He laughed. ‘You start as soon as the Quint thing is over.’

The trouble, I thought, as I sat quietly beside Charles as he drove to Aynsford, was that for me the Quint thing would never be over. Ellis might or might not go to jail… but that wouldn’t be the end for either of us. Gordon’s obsession might deepen. Ellis might maim more than horses. In both of them lay a compulsive disregard of natural law.

No one could ever be comprehensively protected from obsession. One simply had to live as best one could and disregard the feral threat lying in wait — and I would somehow have to shake Gordon loose from staking out my Pont Square door.

Charles said, ‘Do you consider that transferring Yorkshire’s secret files to your own computer was at all immoral? Was it… theft?’

He spoke without censure, but censure was implied. I remembered a discussion we’d had once along the lines of what was honorable and what was not. He’d said I had a vision of honor that made my life a purgatory and I’d said he was wrong, and that purgatory was abandoning your vision of honor and knowing you’d done it. ‘Only for you, Sid,’ he’d said. ‘The rest of the world has no difficulty at all.’

It seemed he was applying to me my own rash judgment. Was stealing knowledge ever justified, or was it not?

I said without self-excuse, ‘It was theft, and dishonourable, and I would do it again.’

‘And purgatory can wait?’

I said with amusement, ‘Have you read The Pump?’

After about five miles he said, ‘That’s specious.’

‘Mm.’

‘The Pump’s a different sort of purgatory.’

I nodded and said idly, ‘The anteroom to hell.’

He frowned, glancing across in distaste. ‘Has hell arrived, then?’ He hated excess emotion. I cooled it.

I said, ‘No. Sorry. It’s been a long day.’

He drove another mile, then asked, ‘How did you hurt your hand?’

I sighed. ‘I don’t want a fuss. Don’t fuss, Charles, if I tell you.’

‘No. All right. No fuss.’

‘Then… Ellis had a go at it.’

‘Ellis?’

‘Mm. Lord Tilepit and Owen Yorkshire watched Ellis enjoy it. That’s how they now know he’s guilty as charged with the colts. If Ellis had had shears instead of a wrench to use on my wrist, I would now have no hands — and for God’s sake, Charles, keep your eyes on the road.’

‘But, Sid…’

‘No fuss. You promised. There’ll be no lasting harm.’ I paused. ‘If he’d wanted to kill me today, he could have done it, but instead he gave me a chance to escape. He wanted…’ I swallowed. ‘He wanted to make me pay for defeating him… and he did make me pay… and on Monday in court I’ll try to disgrace him forever… and I loathe it.’

He drove to Aynsford in a silence I understood to be at least empty of condemnation. Braking outside the door, he said regretfully, ‘If you and Ellis hadn’t been such good friends… no wonder poor Ginnie couldn’t stand it.’

Charles saw the muscles stiffen in my face.

‘What is it, Sid?’ he asked.

‘I… I may have made a wrong assumption.’

‘What assumption?’

‘Mm?’ I said vaguely. ‘Have to think.’

‘Then think in bed,’ he said lightly. ‘It’s late.’

I thought for half the night. Ellis’s revenge brutally throbbed in my fingers. Ellis had tied my wrists and given me thirty seconds… I would be dead, I thought, if we hadn’t been friends.

At Aynsford I kept duplicates of all the things I’d lost in my car — battery charger, razor, clothes and so on — all except the mobile phone. I did have the SIM card, but nothing to use it in.

The no-car situation was solved again by TeleDrive, which came to pick me up on Sunday morning.

To Charles’s restrained suggestion that I pass the day resting with him — ‘A game of chess, perhaps?’ — I replied that I was going to see Rachel Ferns. Charles nodded.

‘Come back,’ he said, ‘if you need to.’

‘Always.’

‘Take care of yourself, Sid.’

Rachel, Linda told me on the telephone, was home from the hospital for the day.

‘Oh, do come,’ she begged. ‘Rachel needs you.’

I went empty-handed with no new fish or wigs, but it didn’t seem to matter.

Rachel herself looked bloodless, a white wisp of a child in the foothills of a far country. In the five days since I’d seen her, the bluish shadows under her eyes had deepened, and she had lost weight so that the round cheeks of the steroids under the bald head and the big shadowed eyes gave her the look of an exotic little bird, unlike life.

Linda hugged me and cried on my shoulder in the kitchen.

‘It’s good news, really,’ she said, sobbing. ‘They’ve found a donor.’

‘But that’s marvelous.’ Like a sunburst of hope, I thought, but Linda still wept.

‘He’s a Swiss,’ she said. ‘He’s coming from Swit zerland. He’s coming on Wednesday. Joe is paying his airfare and the hotel bills. Joe says money’s no object for his little girl.’

‘Then stop crying.’

‘Yes… but it may not work.’

‘And it may,’ I said positively. ‘Where’s the gin?’

She laughed shakily. She poured two glasses. I still didn’t much care for gin but it was all she liked. We clinked to the future and she began talking about paella for lunch.

Rachel was half sitting, half lying, on a small sofa that had been repositioned in the sitting room so that she could look straight and closely into the fish tank. I sat beside her and asked how she felt.

‘Did my mum tell you about the transplant?’ she said.

‘Terrific news.’

‘I might be able to run again.’

Running, it was clear from her pervading lassitude, must have seemed at that point as distant as the moon.

Rachel said, ‘I begged to come home to see the fishes. I have to go back tonight, though. I hoped you would come. I begged God.’

‘You knew I would come.’

‘I meant today, while I’m home.’

‘I’ve been busy since I saw you on Tuesday.’

‘I know. Mummy said so. The nurses tell me when you phone every day.’

Pegotty was crawling all around the floor, growing in size and agility and putting everything unsuitable in his mouth; making his sister laugh.

‘He’s so funny,’ she said. ‘They won’t let him come to the hospital. I begged to see him and the fishes. They told me the transplant is going to make me feel sick, so I wanted to come home first.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

Linda produced steamy rice with bits of chicken and shrimps, which we all ate with spoons.

‘What’s wrong with your hand?’ Linda asked. ‘In places it’s almost black.’

‘It’s only a bruise. It got a bit squashed.’

‘You’ve got sausage fingers,’ Rachel said.

‘They’ll be all right tomorrow.’

Linda returned to the only important subject. ‘The Swiss donor,’ she said, ‘is older than I am! He has three children of his own. He’s a schoolteacher… he sounds a nice man, and they say he’s so pleased to be going to give Rachel some of his bone marrow.’

Rachel said, ‘I wish it had been Sid’s bone marrow.’

I’d had myself tested, right at the beginning, but I’d been about as far from a match as one could get. Neither Linda nor Joe had been more than fifty per cent compatible.

‘They say he’s a ninety per cent match,’ Linda said. ‘You never get a hundred per cent, even from siblings. Ninety per cent is great.’

She was trying hard to be positive. I didn’t know enough to put a bet on ninety per cent. It sounded fine to me; and no one was going to kill off Rachel’s own defective bone marrow if they didn’t believe they could replace it.

‘They’re going to put me into a bubble,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s a sort of plastic tent over my bed. I won’t be able to touch the Swiss man, except through the plastic. And he doesn’t speak English, even. He speaks German. Danke schön. I’ve learned that, to say to him. Thank you very much.’

‘He’s a lucky man,’ I said.

Linda, clearing the plates and offering ice cream for dessert, asked if I would stay with Rachel while she took Pegotty out for a short walk in fresh air.

‘Of course.’

‘I won’t be long.’

When she’d gone, Rachel and I sat on the sofa and watched the fish.

‘You see that one?’ Rachel pointed. ‘That’s the one you brought on Tuesday. Look how fast he swims! He’s faster than all the others.’

The black and silver angel fish flashed through the tank, fins waving with vigor.

‘He’s you,’ Rachel said. ‘He’s Sid.’

I teased her, ‘I thought half of them were Sid.’

‘Sid is always the fastest one. That’s Sid.’ She pointed. ‘The others aren’t Sid anymore.’

‘Poor fellows.’

She giggled. ‘I wish I could have the fishes in the hospital. Mummy asked, but they said no.’

‘Pity.’

She sat loosely cuddled by my right arm but held my other hand, the plastic one, pulling it across towards her. That hand still wasn’t working properly, though a fresh battery and a bit of tinkering had restored it to half-life.

After a long, silent pause, she said, ‘Are you afraid of dying?’

Another pause. ‘Sometimes,’ I said.

Her voice was quiet, almost murmuring. It was a conversation all in a low key, without haste.

She said, ‘Daddy says when you were a jockey you were never afraid of anything.’

‘Are you afraid?’ I asked.

‘Yes, but I can’t tell Mummy. I don’t like her crying.’

‘Are you afraid of the transplant?’

Rachel nodded.

‘You will die without it,’ I said matter-of-factly. ‘I know you know that.’

‘What’s dying like?’

‘I don’t know. No one knows. Like going to sleep, I should think.’ If you were lucky, of course.

‘It’s funny to think of not being here,’ Rachel said. ‘I mean, to think of being a space.’

‘The transplant will work.’

‘Everyone says so.’

‘Then believe it. You’ll be running by Christmas.’

She smoothed her fingers over my hand. I could feel the faint vibrations distantly in my forearm. Nothing, I thought, was ever entirely lost.

She said, ‘Do you know what I’ll be thinking, lying there in the bubble feeling awfully sick?’

‘What?’

‘Life’s a bugger.’

I hugged her, but gently. ‘You’ll do fine.’

‘Yes, but tell me.’

‘Tell you what?’

‘How to be brave.’

What a question, I thought. I said, ‘When you’re feeling awfully sick, think about something you like doing. You won’t feel as bad if you don’t think about how bad you feel.’

She thought it over. ‘Is that all?’

‘It’s quite a lot. Think about fishes. Think about Pegotty pulling off his socks and putting them in his mouth. Think about things you’ve enjoyed.’

‘Is that what you do?’

‘It’s what I do if something hurts, yes. It does work.’

‘What if nothing hurts yet, but you’re going into something scary?’

‘Well… it’s all right to be frightened. No one can help it. You just don’t have to let being frightened stop you.’

‘Are you ever frightened?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’ Too often, I thought.

She said lazily, but with certainty, ‘I bet you’ve never been so frightened you didn’t do something. I bet you’re always brave.’

I was startled. ‘No… I’m not.’

‘But Daddy said…’

‘I wasn’t afraid of riding in races,’ I agreed. ‘Try me in a pit full of snakes, though, and I wouldn’t be so sure.’

‘What about a bubble?’

‘I’d go in there promising myself I’d come out running.’

She smoothed my hand. ‘Will you come and see me?’

‘In the bubble?’ I asked. ‘Yes, if you like.’

‘You’ll make me brave.’

I shook my head. ‘It will come from inside you. You’ll see.’

We went on watching the fish. My namesake flashed his fins and seemed to have endless stamina.

‘I’m going into the bubble tomorrow,’ Rachel murmured. ‘I don’t want to cry when they put me in there.’

‘Courage is lonely,’ I said.

She looked up into my face. ‘What does that mean?’

It was too strong a concept, I saw, for someone of nine. I tried to make things simpler.

‘You’ll be alone in the bubble,’ I said, ‘so make it your own palace. The bubble is to keep you safe from infection — safe from dragons. You won’t cry.’

She snuggled against me; happier, I hoped. I loved her incredibly. The transplant had a fifty-fifty chance of success. Rachel would run again. She had to.

Linda and Pegotty came back laughing from their walk and Linda built towers of bright plastic building blocks for Pegotty to knock down, a game of endless enjoyment for the baby. Rachel and I sat on the floor, playing checkers.

‘You always let me be white,’ Rachel complained, ‘and then you sneak up with the black counters when I’m not looking.’

‘You can play black, then.’

‘It’s disgusting,’ she said, five minutes later. ‘You’re cheating.’

Linda looked up and said, astounded, ‘Are you two quarrelling?’

‘He always wins,’ Rachel objected.

‘Then don’t play with him,’ Linda said reasonably.

Rachel set up the white pieces as her own. I neglected to take one of them halfway through the game, and with glee she huffed me, and won.

‘Did you let me win?’ she demanded.

‘Winning’s more fun.’

‘I hate you.’ She swept all the pieces petulantly from the board and Pegotty put two of them in his mouth.

Rachel, laughing, picked them out again and dried them and set up the board again, with herself again as white, and peacefully we achieved a couple of close finishes until, suddenly as usual, she tired.

Linda produced tiny chocolate cakes for tea and talked happily of the Swiss donor and how everything was going to be all right. Rachel was convinced, I was convinced, Pegotty smeared chocolate all over his face. Whatever the next week might bring to all of us, I thought, that afternoon of hope and ordinariness was an anchor in reality, an affirmation that small lives mattered.

It wasn’t until after she’d fastened both children into the back of her car to drive to the hospital that Linda mentioned Ellis Quint.

‘That trial is on again tomorrow, isn’t it?’ she asked.

We stood in the chilly air a few paces from her car. I nodded. ‘Don’t let Rachel know.’

‘She doesn’t. It hasn’t been hard to keep it all away from her. She never talks about Silverboy anymore. Being so ill… she hasn’t much interest in anything else.’

‘She’s terrific.’

‘Will Ellis Quint go to prison?’

How could I say ‘I hope so’? And did I hope so? Yet I had to stop him, to goad him, to make him fundamentally wake up.

I said, dodging it, ‘It will be for the judge to decide.’

Linda hugged me. No tears. ‘Come and see Rachel in her bubble?’

‘You couldn’t keep me away.’

‘God… I hope…’

‘She’ll be all right,’ I said. ‘So will you.’

Patient TeleDrive took me back to London and, because of the fixed hour of Linda’s departure to the hospital, I again had time to spare before meeting India for dinner.

I again ducked being dropped in Pont Square in the dark evening, and damned Gordon for his vigilance. He had to sleep sometime… but when?

The restaurant called Kensington Place was near the northern end of Church Street, the famous road of endless antique shops, stretching from Kensington High Street, in the south, up to Notting Hill Gate, north. Teledrive left me and my overnight bag on the northwest corner of Church Street, where I dawdled awhile looking in the brightly lit windows of Waterstone’s bookshop, wondering if Rachel would be able to hear the store’s advertised children’s audio tapes in her bubble. She enjoyed the subversive Just William stories. Pegotty, she thought, would grow up to be like him.

A large number of young Japanese people were milling around on the comer, all armed with cameras, taking flash pictures of one another. I paid not much attention beyond noticing that they all had straight black hair, short padded jackets, and jeans. As far as one could tell, they were happy. They also surged between me and Waterstone’s windows.

They bowed to me politely, I bowed unenthusiastically in return.

They seemed to be waiting, as I was, for some prearranged event to occur. I gradually realized from their quiet chatter, of which I understood not a word, that half of them were men, and half young women.

We all waited. They bowed some more. At length, one of the young women shyly produced a photograph that she held out to me. I took it politely and found I was looking at a wedding. At a mass wedding of about ten happy couples wearing formal suits and Western bridal gowns. Raising my head from the photo, I was met by twenty smiles.

I smiled back. The shy young woman retrieved her photo, nodded her head towards her companions and clearly told me that they were all on their honeymoon. More smiles all around. More bows. One of the men held out his camera to me and asked — I gathered — if I would photograph them all as a group.

I took the camera and put my bag at my feet, and they arranged themselves in pairs neatly, as if they were used to it.

Click. Flash. The film wound on, quietly whirring.

All the newlyweds beamed.

I was presented, one by one, with nine more cameras. Nine more bows. I took nine more photos. Flash. Flash. Group euphoria.

What was it about me, I wondered, that encouraged such trust? Even without language there seemed to be no doubt on their part of my willingness to give pleasure. I mentally shrugged. I had the time, so what the hell. I took their pictures and bowed, and waited for eight o’clock.

I left the happy couples on Waterstone’s corner and, carrying my bag, walked fifty yards down Church Street towards the restaurant. There was a narrow side street beside it, and opposite, on the other side of Church Street, one of those quirks of London life, a small recessed area of sidewalk with a patch of scrubby grass and a park bench, installed by philanthropists for the comfort of footsore shoppers and other vagrants. I would sit there, I decided, and watch for India. The restaurant doors were straight opposite the bench. A green-painted bench made of horizontal slats.

I crossed Church Street to reach it. The traffic on Sunday evening was sporadic to nonexistent. I could see a brass plate on the back of the bench: the name of the benefactor who’d paid for it.

I was turning to sit when at the same time I heard a bang and felt a searing flash of pain across my back and into my right upper arm. The impact knocked me over and around so that I ended sprawling on the bench, half lying, half sitting, facing the road.

I thought incredulously, I’ve been shot.

I’d been shot once before. I couldn’t mistake the thud. Also I couldn’t mistake the shudder of outrage that my invaded body produced. Also… there was a great deal of blood.

I’d been shot by Gordon Quint.

He walked out of the shadows of the side street opposite and came towards me across Church Street. He carried a hand-gun with its black, round mouth pointing my way. He was coming inexorably to finish what he’d started, and he appeared not to care if anyone saw him.

I didn’t seem to have the strength to get up and run away.

There was nowhere to run to.

Gordon looked like a farmer from Berkshire, not an obsessed murderer. He wore a checked shirt and a tie and a tweed jacket. He was a middle-aged pillar of the community, a judge and jury and a hangman… a raw, primitive walking act of revenge.

There was none of the screaming out-of-control obscenity with which he’d attacked me the previous Monday. This killer was cold and determined and reckless.

He stopped in front of me and aimed at my chest.

‘This is for Ginnie,’ he said.

I don’t know what he expected. He seemed to be waiting for something. For me to protest, perhaps. To plead.

His voice was hoarse.

‘For Ginnie,’ he repeated.

I was silent. I wanted to stand. Couldn’t manage it.

‘Say something!’ he shouted in sudden fury. The gun wavered in his hand, but he was too close to miss. ‘Don’t you understand?’

I looked not at his gun but at his eyes. Not the best view, I thought inconsequentially, for my last on earth.

Gordon’s purpose didn’t waver. I might deny him any enjoyment of my fear, but that wasn’t going to stop him. He stared at my face. He didn’t blink. No hesitancy there. No withdrawal or doubt. None.

Now, I thought frozenly. It’s going to be now.

A voice was shouting in the road, urgent, frantic, coming nearer, far too late.

The voice shouted one despairing word.

‘Dad.’

Ellis… Ellis… Running across the road waving a five-foot piece of black angle-iron fencing and shouting in frenzy at his father, ‘Dad… Dad… Don’t… Don’t do it.’

I could see him running. Nothing seemed very clear. Gordon could hear Ellis shouting but it wasn’t going to stop him. The demented hatred simply hardened in his face. His arm straightened until his gun was a bare yard from my chest.

Perhaps I won’t feel it, I thought.

Ellis swung the iron fencing post with two hands and all his strength and hit his father on the side of the head.

The gun went off. The bullet hissed past my ear and slammed into a shop window behind me. There were razor splinters of glass and flashes of light and shouting and confusion everywhere.

Gordon fell silently unconscious, face down on the scrubby patch of grass, his right hand with the gun underneath him. My blood ran into a scarlet and widening pool below the slats of the bench. Ellis stood for an eternity of seconds holding the fencing post and staring at my eyes as if he could see into my soul, as if he would show me his.

For an unmeasurable hiatus blink of time it seemed there was between us a fusing of psyche, an insight of total understanding. It could have been a hallucination, a result of too much stress, but it was unmistakably the same for him.

Then he dropped the fencing post beside his father, and turned, and went away at a slow run, across Church Street and down the side road, loping, not sprinting, until he was swallowed by shadow.

I was suddenly surrounded by Japanese faces all asking unintelligible questions. They had worried eyes. They watched me bleed.

The gunshots brought more people, but cautiously. Gordon’s attack, that to me had seemed to happen in slow motion, had in reality passed to others with bewildering speed. No one had tried to stop Ellis. People thought he was going to bring help.

I lost further account of time. A police car arrived busily, lights flashing, the first manifestation of all that I most detested — questions, hospitals, forms, noise, bright lights in my eyes, clanging and banging and being shoved around. There wasn’t a hope of being quietly stitched up and left alone.

I told a policemen that Gordon, though unconscious at present, was lying over a loaded gun.

He wanted to know if Gordon had fired the shots in self-defense.

I couldn’t be bothered to answer.

The crowd grew bigger and an ambulance made an entrance.

A young woman pushed the uniforms aside, yelling that she was from the press. India… India… come to dinner.

‘Sorry,’ I said.

‘Sid…’ Horror in her voice and a sort of despair.

‘Tell Kevin Mills…’ I said. My mouth was dry from loss of blood. I tried again. She bent her head down to mine to hear above the hubbub.

With humor I said, ‘Those Japanese people took a load of photos… I saw the flashes… so tell Kevin to get moving… Get those photos… and he can have… his exclusive.’