and he almost laughed. Another second and the room would be flooded with light. The intern tore at the catches, pulling one of the shutters wide.
Sunlight flooded the room and Lambert suddenly felt the grip on his throat removed as Mackenzie screamed and raised both hands to shield his eyes. The Inspector rolled clear, searching for something to fight back with. It was scarcely necessary. Mackenzie turned towards the window, his red eyes narrowed against the light but fixed on Brooks who was in the process of tearing down the second shutter.
With a roar, Mackenzie ran at Brooks, launching himself at the intern.
He crashed into his prey with the force of a steam train, hurling him backward.
The nurse screamed as both men hit the window.
The glass exploded outward, huge shards flying into the air as Mackenzie and Brooks crashed through the window. They seemed to hang in the air for a second before plummeting the twelve storeys to the ground below.
Lambert scrambled to his feet, hearing the sickening thump as both men hit the ground. Cool air blew in through the broken window and, being careful to avoid the pieces of shattered glass, the Inspector leaned over the sill.
A hundred feet below him, still locked together, lay the bodies of Mackenzie and Brooks. Around them, a spreading pool of blood was mingling with fragments of smashed glass.
'Oh God,' groaned Lambert, bowing his head.
The second intern comforted the nurse who was sobbing uncontrollably.
Kirby and Morgan walked slowly across to the window and also peered down at the smashed bodies.
No one spoke. What was there to say? Lambert ran a hand through his hair and exhaled deeply, suddenly aware of the pain in his neck where Mackenzie had attacked him. He touched a fingertip to it and saw a smear of blood when he withdrew it.
Kirby tilted the policeman's head back and looked at the cut.
'Just a graze, Tom,' he said.
Lambert nodded.
'I don't know what to say,' murmured Morgan. 'I've never seen anything like it. No brainwaves.'
Lambert stood up. 'Is that all that bothers you? Two men have just died, for Christ's sake.' He sighed and sat down on the edge of the couch.
'It would appear our problems are over, Tom,' said Kirby, trying to sound cheerful.
Lambert regarded him balefully for a second and thought about saying something, but held it back. Kirby was right. He had to admit that. Now the only problem he had was finding Gordon Reece. It seemed petty in comparison to the problems he'd had these last few days. The nurse had stopped crying and the second intern was helping her out of the room. Morgan watched them go.
The Inspector got to his feet and headed for the door.
'Where are you going, Tom?' asked Kirby.
'Back to work,' snapped Lambert and walked out.
Lambert drove back to Medworth alone. He felt as if he needed his own company. He didn't want to talk about what he'd just seen and he drove with both windows open as if the fresh air blowing into the car would cleanse his mind. The smell of damp earth and grass was strong, a welcome contrast to the antiseptic smell of the hospital he had just left. He hated hospitals, always had, ever since he was a child, and what he had just seen had done nothing to change his mind.
The countryside rushed past him as he drove, perhaps a little faster than he needed. He inhaled, held the breath and then let it out slowly, trying to calm himself down. His foot eased off the accelerator and he glanced at the falling needle of the speedometer. Finally, he slowed to about twenty, swung the car into a layby and shut off the engine.
The road was narrow, flanked on either side by tall hedges. To his right lay hillside, green and shimmering in the early morning sunlight. To his left, down the hill, lay Medworth. He could see smoke belching from the foundry on the far side of the town, but from this distance, it looked like nothing more than a grey wisp. Lambert got out of the car, slammed the door and leant on the bonnet, arms folded. He looked out over Medworth.
'Gordon Reece, where are you?' he said aloud, then smiled to himself. The smile dwindled rapidly as he felt the pain from the scratches on his throat. He rubbed them, remembering the power in Mackenzie's hands. If not for Brooks, he wouldn't have had a chance.
There would be a full autopsy on Mackenzie that afternoon and he had been told, before leaving the hospital, that he would be contacted as soon as the results were ready. Lambert shook his head. Four people had been killed, Mackenzie himself was dead. Their knowledge would do them no good now. He sighed, still unable to believe what he had seen that morning, not wanting to believe what had happened in Medworth during the past week or so.
He suddenly thought of the medallion. Could there be a tie up between it, the transformation of Mackenzie, and the disappearance of Gordon Reece? He climbed back into the car and started the engine.
It was time he took a trip to the antique shop.
Howard Trefoile prodded the brown mass of liver and onions before him and plucked up the courage to take a bite. He chewed it slowly. Not too bad, after all. He stirred the brown mass around and continued eating. He would have preferred to have gone out to lunch but that cost money, and the way things had been for the past couple of months he couldn't afford three course meals every day. The business wasn't exactly floundering in the wake of the recession, more like languishing. Things were stable. That, he decided, was the best way to describe them. He comforted himself with the thought that other businesses in the town had gone broke while his still remained on a paying basis.
The antique shop had been left to him by his father when he died, and Howard had run it successfully for the last eight years since that sad event. He and his father had always been very close and it had been more or less preordained that he should take over when his father retired. Unfortunately, cancer had got his father before he could reach retiring age and Howard had been thrown in the deep end, so to speak. But his years of working with his father had stood him in good stead and he found it relatively simple to carry on the business.
His mother had died when he was ten and he could vaguely remember her, but the image wasn't strong enough to cause him pain. He stared across his kitchen table at her photo and sighed quietly. Kitchen. He smiled to himself. It could scarcely be called a kitchen. A small room at the back of the shop which served as dining room, working room, and kitchen. Beyond it lay his tiny sitting room, full of the discarded objects of times gone by. Things which he could never hope to sell in the shop itself, but which he had come to find an affection for. Upstairs was his bedroom and a store room. That was next to the bathroom and toilet.
The building, sandwiched between a shoe shop and grocers, was small, but it was adequate for Howard's needs. He lived and worked alone. There was no one in his life, but he had his work so he needed no one. At fifty- six he sometimes wondered what would become of the shop if anything happened to him, but he knew in his heart what its fate would be. It would be demolished. He felt suddenly sad. Not for himself, but for his departed father. The man had spent his entire life building up the business. The thought that it might someday just cease to exist troubled Howard. Still, he reasoned, what could he do about it now? He couldn't afford to pay staff to carry on running it should he himself pass on, so there seemed no alternative. The shop would become as anachronistic as the things it sold.
He dismissed the thoughts and continued eating. The empty packet which had housed the frozen liver and onions lay on the draining board beside him. Everything for convenience these days, he thought. Speed was of the essence in the modern world. Howard sometimes thought that he had been born twenty years too late.
As he was pushing the last soggy chunk of liver into his mouth, he heard the familiar tinkle of the bell above the door. He tutted. He must have forgotten to put the "Closed" sign up. He often did that. He got to his feet and walked to the door which led out into the shop itself.
The man standing in the shop had his back to Trefoile and, wiping a trickle of gravy from his mouth, the
