'That sod Rink.' I quite understood. He was one of those sick cold people who impelled more normal people into lunacy. 'He forced you to do it. Never mind, love. He's gone.
We - you and me - can manage without the others now.' I pointed. 'It's hidden behind the pale slabs below the waterwheel.'
'Is it really there?' She peered timidly out. So help me, I actually steadied her by holding her elbow.
'For certain,' I told her, smiling. 'Can't you hear the lovely radiance?'
'Why!' she exclaimed delightedly. 'So I can!'
She suddenly came back inside, staggering slightly as a board cracked and gave way, straightened up and shot me. What with the water noise, the sudden apocalyptic crack of the gun, the bewildering realization what had happened and being spun round by the force of the blow in my side, I was disorientated. I heard somebody screaming, not me for once, a high steady insane call. I was on the ground among the bird droppings and bleeding like a pig. I wondered why it didn't hurt. The rotten planking had given under the weight of us both. We'd been tilted different ways, me inside and Nichole out into the millrace. God Almighty, the millrace. My arm was stiff and bloody as well. Most of the shot had missed but I'd collected a hell of a lot of blast. She'd fallen through the rotten boardwalk. My arm was stinging. That smell was powder. Nichole. That was her screaming somewhere.
'Nichole!' I yelled, coming to. She screamed again. 'Hang on. I'm coming, love,' I shouted, coughing from the acrid fumes of the gun's explosion.
I hauled myself back up the steps. She wasn't there, but a great torn hole let the crazy view in, the still wheel, the hurling water and the tumbling drenched rocks rising abruptly above the falls.
'Please, Lovejoy!' she was screaming. 'Darling!'
'Hold on!' I called. 'Hold on!' The force of the gun and the rotten platform giving under us had thrust her back against the wall and it had simply fallen away. I spread myself on the platform as quickly as I could and slid towards the gap. She was lodged between the wheel and the stone slabs, head mercifully out of the onrush.
I'd have to risk my arm and shoulder under the wheel. I examined the locking lever, in case. It looked exactly as I'd replaced it. One careless nudge against the peg could edge the cogs into place and the entire bloody waterwheel would turn, sweeping Nichole down and crushing her against the sliprace stone slabs. And I'd go too.
'Please, Lovejoy!' She was moving, becoming frantic now, in worse danger of slipping further under the wheel.
'Hold on!' I screeched. 'Hold on!'
'I can't!' she gasped. Water was pushing against her head.
'You must! One second!' I yelled into the roar. 'Drop the bloody gun!' She was holding mechanically on to the gun, for God's sake. As if it was any use. I turned aside to see if there was anything for me to hang on to. Not a bloody thing. Nichole must have feared I was going away because she screamed.
'Lovejoy!'
'I'm still here, darling.' I turned back to reach into the flood for her arm. I couldn't lose her now, not when I'd everything in my grasp. As long as I kept my legs clear of style='mso-spacerun:yes'> the gears and that huge ominous lever. 'Lift yourself,' I bawled, getting a mouthful of the water. 'Now.'
'I - I didn't mean to.' She was babbling incoherently as our hands met. I pulled. Nichole started to come free of the water. I gasped at the exertion. My side was hurting now, but we were clinging firmer. I began to wriggle slowly back along the wooden platform.
'I didn't want to kill your birds, Lovejoy darling,' she gasped.
'What?' I yelled. Her relieved smiling face was an inch from mine. We were both practically submerged, me dangling upside down, hanging on, and her draped on the wheel in the funnelled mountain water. She still clutched the shotgun. As if I hadn't enough to lift.
'I knew you'd forgive me, darling,' she said breathlessly. I still held her in an embrace.
'And the bike was a silly joke.'
'You?' I shrieked.
'And I just had to push Edward…'
I was still pulling her up but now I stared in horror. She must have seen my eyes change. Her lips stripped back off her teeth. Even in that position she struggled to lift the gun at me, screeching hatred. Hatred at me, who practically loved her. And honest to God it was an accident but my hands slipped. Her fingers unlatched or slipped or something, I don't really know any more. I couldn't help it. Everything happened in a split-second blur. I swear it was beyond my control. My side suddenly gave out and my hand jerked away. It just happened. She slid back down screaming, wedging with a burbled shrill squeal into the millrace. She was howling dementedly with outrage. Her eyes glared up with pure hatred as she dragged the shotgun up against the force of the water. I removed my arm and edged frantically away from the wheel on to the crumbling platform. I swear my hand just slipped. Honest to God. And in the suddenness of her weight vanishing my flailing foot clanked the lever. Before I knew what was going on I heard the gears engage. It was a pure accident. Maybe I was trying to scrabble away from the coming blast of the shotgun. She gave one screech and the wheel lurched round. I heard it. Then there was only the moaning and whining sound of the big wheel's slow turning and turning. I lay there, gasping. The paddles had blood on, but only the first time round.
I'd had to roll over. She'd been lifting the gun at me again. You can see that. If she hadn't been trying to pull the trigger I'd have reached for her again. Accidents always happen when you're in a hurry. Everybody knows that.
I don't know how long it was before I dared look out. She was crushed beneath the wheel, her corpse deformed and mangled on the rocks and washed quite free of blood.
The recesses between the boulders were covered with dark brown discs. I edged along the planking. The turning wheel had used Nichole to scrape the slab covering off the bed of the millrace. There were hundreds down on the river bed. I'd been right. Bexon had walled the lead coffin, now lying crumpled and exposed in the water, behind the millrace.
I could see Nichole's waxen head in the clear water. It took me an age to work up courage to lock the wheel again. Honestly, hand on my heart, it was accidental.
