Twenty-four hours later, I lay in the blessed cool of Number Six, along with all the other walking wounded. They’d found my arm. It was between my shoulder and my wrist, exactly where it should have been. I’d been lying on it. I felt a bit silly.
Jamie, Murdoch, and Markham had made their final journey back to St Mary’s. The Boss accompanied them. The rest of us were having our bits and pieces patched up and being re-hydrated. I leaned my head back against the wall and tried to make sense of it all.
They’d gone off with TB2. Eventually, they’d take it to the Cretaceous period. We’d turn up, fire the EMP, thereby initiating a countdown to the explosion that would destroy TB2 and take a large number of Ronan’s people with it. Maybe even Ronan himself. We knew we’d be all right, because it had already happened to us. Our past. Their future.
And Barclay. Was she dead? She’d been slugged by a vengeful goddess, but with my luck …
And bloody Leon Farrell. Who’d built a bomb and not told me. And I was speaking as his mission controller now. He would have allowed us to live and work in a bloody great bomb. It’s all very well to say it was harmless until triggered, but anything could happen to disrupt the power then the whole bloody lot would have gone up.
No, it wouldn’t. We already knew – it exploded back in the Cretaceous. We’d been perfectly safe. And he’d done his best to prevent Ronan slaughtering the unit wholesale, without completely giving the game away. He must have been beside himself expecting me to do something stupid. Which I nearly had. And whose fault was that? I was back to being pissed because he hadn’t told me.
And what about Mrs Partridge who had stopped me from doing that stupid something? Was she indeed the Muse of History? The daughter of Zeus who sat quietly at St Mary’s, manipulating people and events? Did she work for St Mary’s? Or did St Mary’s work for her?
I opened my eyes to see someone put a chair for the Boss. He was back. Although he still looked desperately tired, he looked a million times better than the last time I’d seen him.
‘Miss Maxwell, how are you?’
‘I’m fine, sir. Another hour and another bottle of glucose drink and I’ll be back out there. Doctor Dowson tells me they’d already unloaded the pots and the Professor says he can still make pitch, although apparently, we all now have to make – personal contributions.’
He seemed amused by that. ‘I have some good news for you. When I last saw Mr Markham, he was attempting, somewhat groggily, to persuade Nurse Hunter to engage in a game of cards, the purpose of which, I understand, is to cause the loser to divest herself, or himself, of course, of various articles of clothing. He seemed very determined. I should not be at all surprised if he is successful in his endeavours.’
That news did me far more good than anything the medical team was doling out.
‘He’s alive?’
‘Very much so. His reputation for indestructibility is untarnished.’
I leaned back and closed my eyes, feeling the treacherous prick of tears.
He smiled. ‘You’re about to have another visitor. Be gentle with him.’
And he left.
‘Don’t you come near me you devious, double-dealing, underhand, rat-bastard. I’m going to gut you with a rusty breadknife and then stake your honey-covered arse over an anthill in the noonday sun.’
‘You’re very grumpy today. And after I picked you up out of the sand and brought you into this nice cool pod. How ungrateful are you?’
‘I’ve been shot at, blown up, covered in shit, brained with a rock, and lied to. You’re lucky I’m only grumpy.’
‘I haven’t lied to you. Did you ever say to me, “Have you rigged TB2 to explode?” No, you did not. And as for the rest, you’re bullet-free and everyone was blown up, not just you, so stop making such a fuss. And I don’t know what you did to Izzie Barclay but she was in a much worse condition than you when she left, so why are you complaining?’
He was calm and soothing and had a reasonable explanation for everything. No woman should have to put up with that.
‘Well, answer me this. How did she get free in the first place?’
‘I let her go.’
I took a deep breath.
He took a step backwards.
People were edging out of the pod.
‘Hold on. Before you go up like the Professor’s manure heap, I had to let her go.’
I would have raised an incredulous eyebrow, but my face hurt too much. I had to content myself with sipping my drink in a disbelieving manner.
‘There’s someone else out there. Someone recruited Sussman and put that money in his account. Someone got Barclay into St Mary’s. Someone’s providing a safe haven for Ronan to operate from. We – I – thought that if I let Barclay go then she might lead us to him. Or her. Or them.’
‘Really,’ I said with awful sarcasm, because I’d come to exactly the same conclusion and without unleashing Barclay upon the world. ‘And how did that work out for you?’