He lay on his side, with his bad leg twisted beneath him, still gripping his stick.
I couldn’t believe what she’d done. I couldn’t believe she would shoot Dr Bairstow.
Neither, it seemed, could she, standing open-mouthed, staring at the still body at her feet, eyes wide with shock.
I tried to press home the advantage, saying gently, ‘Yes, it’s not so easy to kill someone close up, is it, Izzie? Much easier to do it from a distance.’ I looked around the room. ‘Shame there’s no gas fire.’
She dragged her gaze from the unmoving Dr Bairstow. ‘What?’
‘You know – a gas fire. You light them and they give off heat.’
She stared at me.
‘Or, in some cases, you light them and they give off carbon monoxide. Not normally, of course. You usually have to shove a bird’s nest down the chimney first and then top it up with a bucket full of twigs and gravel and soot. Having done that, you sit back, wait until the cooler weather, and practise your grief-stricken expression. Oh – and remove the battery from the detector, of course. It’s all a bit of a waste of time if you forget to do that.’
If she’d been white before, she was grey, now. The hand holding her gun was vibrating uncontrollably. Was I about to have my face blown off by accident?
Even over all the clamour downstairs, I could hear her whisper. ‘Who are you? For God’s sake, who are you?’
A voice that wasn’t my own said, ‘I am Justice and I have come for you.’
She stepped back and then made a desperate attempt to recover, dragging her eyes from Dr Bairstow, swallowing hard, and standing straighter.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t do anything.’
‘Yes, you did. And I’m not the only one who knows, either.’
She was getting herself under control again.
‘Oh, really? You’re going to try to buy your life by saying that if anything happens to you then this other person will go to the authorities? Good luck with that. You have no proof. There is no proof.’
‘Oh, God, Izzie, concentrate, will you? This is me. I don’t care about the bloody authorities. And I certainly don’t care about proof. And neither does the other person. So know this. If anything happens to me, she will come for you. Silently. Out of the dark. And you’ll never see it coming. And you’ll never know anything about it.’
The words jerked out between cold, stiff lips. Quiet, deadly, little words in a quiet, deadly, little voice that was, nevertheless, perfectly audible above the noise below.
She backed up until she was a good, safe distance away from me. She had the winning hand and she knew it.
The data she carried was priceless. She could bargain her way out of any situation and she would. Beginning with the demand to be the new Director of the new St Mary’s. The first steps on the road to God knew what. This was no longer about Leon. Or me. Or the other Maxwell. Or even the Time Police. She had to be stopped.
Below us, the Battle of St Mary’s raged on. Occasional muffled booms shook the building beneath my feet.
I said, ‘Let me see to Dr Bairstow,’ and moved slowly toward him. She raised her gun. ‘Stop right there.’
I don’t often do as I’m told, but I was alongside his desk, which was where I wanted to be. From here , there was just the faintest chance I could reach her.
We stared at each other. Everything else slowly receded into the background.
I took a deep breath to calm down. I had to get this right.
‘So, Izzie – what now?’
‘For you? Nothing.’
At that moment, with a final explosion that shook the room, all sounds of battle ceased. The silence was deafening. And terrifying. I could think of only one reason why everything should stop.
St Mary’s was finished.
Chapter Sixteen
They say that just before you die, your whole life flashes in front of your eyes, but since I was too busy concentrating on Barclay, I missed it.
‘Take off your helmet.’
I blinked. ‘Why? What for?’
‘I want to watch your brains splatter all over that wall. I want to watch your face blow apart. I want to see that stupid, smug, self-satisfied smile wiped off your face. For ever. So take off your helmet.’
She quite literally shook with fury. Or fear, maybe. She should turn and walk out of the room. Now. I’d be too busy with Dr Bairstow to prevent her. She should go now. That was what she should do. But she was going to take a moment for personal revenge and that’s always a mistake. I’ve said it before. Don’t gloat – just shoot.
I reached up slowly and fumbled to get my helmet off. I pulled it away from my head, took a moment to sigh with relief, wiped my forearm across my sweaty forehead, turned slightly to lay it on the desk, pivoted on my heels, and threw it at her.
And missed.
She fired at the same moment and her bullet thunked into the wall beside me. I felt the wind of its passing on my cheek. Bloody hell! If I’d known she was that good a shot …