‘Never mind that for the moment. Did you get Ronan? Are you all out of the house?
‘No. And yes. Markham, Schiller, Weller, and Randall have already jumped. Peterson’s with Number Five, waiting for me. I’m waiting for you. Where are you?’
‘What about Guthrie?’
A pause.
I said more urgently, ‘What about Guthrie?’
‘He hasn’t come back and I can’t raise him.’
My heart slid sideways. He was dead. And that bastard Ronan was still out there.
I could hear the strain in his voice.
‘Where the hell are you? Tell me.’
‘Not sure. Somewhere between the palace and the house.’
‘I’m coming.’
‘No. You can’t see your hand in front of your face here. There are soldiers after me and I’ve hurt my knee again.’
‘No, you can’t see your hand in front of your face. I’ve got a Maglite.’
Well, he just bloody would have, wouldn’t he?
‘Get under cover and wait for me, Max.’
‘I’m not leaving without Guthrie.’
‘Neither am I, but we’ll get you first. Just stay there. Don’t move. I’m on my way. Two minutes.’
It was considerably longer than two minutes, but eventually I saw a gleam of light. With huge relief, I stepped out of a sheltering doorway and walked straight into the arms of Clive Ronan.
I swear – if I bumped into one more person that day, I would have screamed.
Both of us were taken aback, but I had the advantage. I knew who he was and, in the dark, he didn’t have a clue about me.
We’d done it! We’d got the queen and Bothwell together, and now, here was Ronan. Right in front of me. Mission accomplished.
If I could just hold on to him for a minute or so – that’s all it would take. Leon was on his way. I hoped.
I threw myself at him. He slipped on the wet cobbles and we both went down hard. He cursed and thrashed around. He was on the bottom, smothered in wet velvet and brocade. His lantern had smashed as he fell and we were grappling in the darkness. I struggled to get an arm free and pull out a hairpin. Still my weapon of choice in any century.
We rolled around blindly in the dark. At any moment, I expected to feel the bright, sharp pain of his dagger between my ribs, but I wasn’t going to let go.
He tore himself away and scrambled to his feet. Desperate, I grabbed a leg, hung on with both arms, and bit the inside of his thigh as hard as I could. He yelled – a sound abruptly cut off when Farrell clouted him with his Maglite.
He reeled away. Still on the ground, I lunged for him and Leon, attempting something similar, fell over me. We both went down again and Ronan disappeared into the rain and dark.
‘Don’t let him get away,’ I shouted, flailing wildly amongst yards of sodden velvet.
He pulled me to my feet. Somewhere behind us, I could hear bolts being pulled back as a concerned citizen grappled to get his door open and discover what all the noise was about.
He pulled me away. ‘Come on, before someone sticks their head out and sees us. Did you see which direction he came from?’
‘Yes, down here.’ I pointed to a patch of even deeper darkness. He shone his torch down a narrow alley.
‘Which knee?’
‘The left one again,’ I said with resignation.
He stood on my left side, put his arm around my waist and took some of my weight on his hip. Now that I was safe – relatively – my concerns were all for Ian Guthrie, who had gone alone into this maze of dark alleyways. Not a wise move. I feared for him.
At this range, we could use the tag reader. Even so, it seemed to take for ever to find him. There were any number of dark places where he could be and we searched them all. Eventually, we found him in an alley, propped limply against a barrel. My heart lurched with fear. Farrell bent over him. Blood ran from a seriously bad gash above his eye, mixing with the rain streaming down his face. I exhaled with huge relief. Dead people don’t bleed. His eyelids flickered in the torchlight. He was conscious. Dazed but conscious.
We liberated a handcart we found backed against a wall and bundled him into it. Farrell pulled and I pushed, casting anxious glances over my shoulder. By my reckoning, about an hour had passed. More than enough time for soldiers to be combing the streets and alleyways, weather or no weather. They would surely have gone straight to the house in Canongate and have sealed off the Ports – the gates – as well.
We saw no one.
The torrent had ceased and the rain was now merely heavy. There was no sound apart from the ceaseless drumming and splashing of water. No sound of running, no shouting, no lights, no commotion as a peaceful city was roused in the search for someone with whom the queen would surely want a very nasty word. I limped along and thought through the possibilities.