As if I'd want to move with a homicidal plod intent on battering me to death.
'I had to do it, sir,' Verner explained as if making a report, all calm. 'He'd some daft notion about coming clean to that Quayle tart, and helping the Countess's mob to take us over, do us out of our scheme.'
'Stand by the balcony. I'll get Lovejoy up.'
The brigadier moved. Sep moved. I tried to crawl away behind the recumbent moaning mound that was probably Maud, to hide and let her take the brunt of whatever was coming. I thought maybe I could lob myself over the balcony, splash in the water below. Or was the vertical drop onto the quayside, where I'd smash my brains out on the flagstones—
Something swished. Hot wetness hosed across my neck. I screeched, wailed. The thing went swish, swish. Horrid spurts hosed my face.
A gurgle sounded near me. I clasped Maud and hung on, hoping the maniac wouldn't start swinging at his daughter while him and Verner came to some arrangement.
The brigadier grunted. Sep gurgled, tried to cough, failed. The balcony seemed to shiver a second, but it could only have been my imagination. Something heavy fell, thudding onto stones below.
Vertical. The drop was vertical.
Somebody close by – the brigadier, doubtless – shone a pencil torch into the balcony corners. There was blood everywhere. Maud was covered in it. The brigadier stood there, his expression calm. In his hand he held his sabre. It had surprisingly little blood on it at the tip, but the rest was gore, gore. Even the balcony doors' windows were liberally sprayed with a red cascade slowly trickling down the glass panes.
The brigadier stooped, looked at his daughter, then removed the door key and handed it to me.
'Do the necessary, old chap.'
'Eh?'
His face assumed a pained look. 'Insert the key in the other side of the door, if you please. Don't lock it. Then dial the police.'
'Where from?'
'Try the telephone.' He waited expectantly, then added, 'In the bar.'
I did as he said. Just told them to come fast, and bring an ambulance. They started asking me questions, bloody idiots, as if I knew anything.
'Good man,' Brig said. 'Bring Maud a cushion, Lovejoy.' As I turned, he asked conversationally, 'Oh, where did you leave Quaker?'
'I didn't touch him,' I croaked.
'I know,' he said with exhausted patience. 'You couldn't. He was on the opposite side of the river. Just remember that Verner said that, eh?'
'Right, sir,' I said, wondering what the hell he was on about.
He placed the cushion and sat down, cradling Maud.
'You can go, Lovejoy. You are irrelevant. Be prepared to answer their questions later.
Be factual, please.'
'Right.' I hesitated. 'Do you want to get away, Brig? I'll think of something.' God. What if he said yes?
'No, Lovejoy. You fail to understand. Your perennial habit.' He gave a wry smile. Maud stirred in her father's arms. 'I am the principal Name. Therefore I must accept responsibility. Bankruptcy is now my duty.'
'Duty? But you might get out of it.'
'Duty is for doing, not evading. It is the possession of a gentleman.'
'Right, Brig.' He meant he hoped I'd do mine, irrelevant as I was.
39
MY JACKET WAS hopelessly caked with blood. I found the bar's loos and washed some of the blood off. I didn't look presentable but when did I ever?
Maud was sitting up, shuddering. Her dad had draped his bloodstained jacket round her shoulders. He was seated beside her amid the gore. An execution scene. A couple of people were shouting up from below. Somebody had brought a torchlight, never still, flickering on trees. 'Is she all right?'
'A bad bruise.' The brigadier had wiped his sabre on his trouser leg – I saw the stripe it made – and sheathed it. First things first. 'Lucky I came, hey?'
'I'll go and find Quaker.'
'Be a good chap. Go down and let them in.' No police as yet, though. I did as he said.
Two astonished blokes, one in the uniform of a car-park attendant, coat of arms on his cap, were gaping aghast at me through the glass doors. I unlocked. They came in. One had two dogs straining at a leash, wanting ever more excitement on this unusual night walk.
'What the hell's happened?'
'I've called the police. It's upstairs.'
'There's a man dead out there,' the uniformed bloke said. It was beyond him. He wanted reason, like don't we all. 'Ted's there.'
'The lady will be all right,' I said, doing my best for his rational world. 'Her dad the brigadier's with her.'
