Merlin checked the police officer closest to him. She was lying on her back, with her hands clutched low on the right side of her neck, blood trickling between her fingers. She looked up at Merlin, a puzzled expression on her face. Not from pain, but bewilderment.
“What’s going on?” she asked. “Why on earth are we on the M1?”
“You’ll be okay,” soothed Merlin. He had aimed for her right shoulder, not the neck. He moved her hands aside, pulled open her jacket, and tried not to show alarm. It didn’t look good.
He pulled a vial of Sipper saliva out of the narrow pocket inside his sleeve, snapped the top off, swilled it around in his mouth, and spat it into the wound. The liquid glowed as it fell, bright rivulets spreading through the darker blood.
Vivien appeared with the first aid kit from the police car’s boot. She opened it, grabbed a field dressing, and pressed it hard on the woman’s neck, holding it on.
“Bandage!” she said.
“Why is the sky so blue?” asked the woman. “So blue.”
“How’s the other one?” asked Merlin. He lifted the woman’s head so he could get the bandage around her neck.
“Dead,” said Vivien. She peeled back the edge of her glove so an inch of silver skin was visible at the heel of her hand and held it against the wound, sucking in her breath. She held it for several seconds, then exhaled.
“Definitely dead?” asked Merlin in a small voice.
“A ricochet off the door frame into his eye and then the brain. Instant death.”
“Shit,” said Merlin. “Shit, shit.”
“This one will live, I think,” said Vivien. She took her hand away and pulled up the glove. “But as well as the wound, someone’s interfered with her mind. I can’t tell who, or whether it will last.”
Cars were slowing down as the people in them gawked at the scene. Merlin looked up as he heard a car stopping behind the police vehicle and instantly picked up his pistol. The stopping car was a newish Vauxhall Estate, splashed with mud. A woman in Wellington boots and wearing what looked like green hospital scrubs leaped out the passenger side, her hands held high. The man in the driver’s seat was hunched as low as he could go and still see out the windscreen.
“I’m a vet!” called the woman nervously. “Can I help? Please?”
“Yes,” shouted Merlin. “Tell your friend to drive to the next emergency telephone and call an ambulance and the police! You can take over here.”
The Vauxhall took off. The traffic had been increasing, there was a steady flow, but now all of them were slowing down to have a look, which would cause a tailback for miles and bring attention sooner rather than later. It was also possible one of those who’d previously gone past had already stopped at the next emergency phone and called for help.
The vet ran up, keeping her hands in the air. Merlin picked up the officer’s .38 to remove any temptation for some sort of heroic intervention, and went around the other side of the car to lean in and check the VHF two-way radio, stepping over the man he’d killed.
“The other officer’s dead,” said Vivien to the vet. “Keep direct pressure on. I think she’ll make it.”
As Merlin expected, the radio was still on the London general frequency, useless here in Leicestershire. If this had been any sort of authorized excursion, they would have already telephoned the local police and prearranged a frequency or at least tuned it to the general channel for the county. He got out, and gestured to Vivien. The vet had her hands on the pad over the gunshot wound, concentrating entirely on the patient, not looking at Merlin and Vivien.
The two booksellers walked quickly back towards their taxi.
“How did you know?” asked Vivien.
“It’s a Met car, not Leicestershire Constabulary,” said Merlin. “That made me suspicious, and then they moved strangely getting out. Reminded me of the thugs who came for Susan. That constable back there, she wasn’t asking why she was on the motorway out of shock, she genuinely didn’t know how she came to be there. Her mind had been messed with!”
“I know,” said Vivien gently. “I told you.”
“I didn’t shoot until they did and damn it, I was shooting to wound!”
“I know,” repeated Vivien. “Come on, we have to go.”
Merlin slammed the hood shut and jumped in the driver’s side. He had to wait a moment for a gap in the traffic, and he wondered if someone was going to try and stop them, ramming the car or something equally stupid. But the people who’d seen what actually happened had already been carried forward by the ceaseless tide of vehicles. All those passing now saw was a slightly incongruous London black cab—a relatively rare but by no means impossible sight on any motorway—leaving some sort of accident involving a police car.
“We’d better ditch the cab. The Leicestershire force will be on to it soon. It’s the murder of a police officer, as far as they’re concerned. It’ll take days at the least to sort it out with London,” said Merlin as they sped away. “I wish I hadn’t had to shoot.”
He was silent for a few seconds, before he took a breath and continued. “We’ll have to steal another car. And telephone Thurston.”
“Merrihew will be at the New Bookshop by now as well,” said Vivien, not happily. She had the scabbard back on her lap. “They’ll have activated the full operations room. First time since the early sixties, I think.”
“Where’s the sword? And, I hope, the wolf and Susan?”
Vivien concentrated, once
