And the Rest Is History(103)

‘He’s not with the others.’

Who had said that?

Matthew had said that. He had said, ‘He’s not with the others.’

I didn’t stop to question how he could know such a thing. I was prepared to seize any straw. He’d been right. Leon wasn’t with the others. I didn’t know or care how Matthew could possibly know or that he hadn’t also told me where Leon actually was. I had come to find Leon and that’s what I was going to do. To find Leon and bring him home.

I turned and stared in the direction diametrically opposed to where we’d found the others. The remains of a high wall – none too safe by the looks of it – would be a good starting point. From there I could work my way back towards the med teams, still frantically working.

I scrambled over rubble, feeling it shift under my feet, burning my hands a couple of times and wishing I’d thought to wear gloves. Close up, the wall looked even more precarious than it had from fifty feet away. If Leon was anywhere near it then we would both be in trouble.

Several black figures were making their way towards me.

‘What are you doing over here?’ asked Ellis.

I took a deep breath and told the truth. ‘Matthew said he wouldn’t be with the others.’

He looked at me for very long moment and then said, ‘Did he indeed? Well, I think that’s worth investigating, don’t you? See what you can find, guys.’ They consulted their tag readers, muttered to each other, and moved away.

We stood in silence and then he looked at his watch and said, ‘Max…’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘You must do what you need to do,’ and tried not to think about how I would feel as their pod blinked away and I was alone in all this destruction.

And then a voice spoke very quietly.

‘We’ve found him.’

I peered through the drifting smoke. About twenty yards away, an officer had raised his arm. Another crouched over something. The remaining medical team was scrambling towards them, but carefully. The remains of the high wall hung over them. Given the amount of stonework and timber, I wondered if this had been a church. It was certainly substantial enough to have brought a runaway pod to a halt, but whatever it was, having performed this useful function, had then collapsed, leaving just this one precarious-looking section still standing.

Ellis took my hand. ‘Come on, Max. Let’s go and see.’

And – now that the moment had come – I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. If I remained here then there was a chance Leon could still be alive, but if I went and looked then I would know for certain. I remembered Leon’s voice from long ago, telling me about Schr?dinger’s Cat. Two possibilities. The cat is alive. The cat is dead. And only when you open the box to look do the realities collide and you know, one way or the other, whether the cat is alive or the cat is dead. But so long as I stood over here, there would always be the hope that Leon could be alive.

‘Max?’

‘I’m sorry. I was thinking about Schr?dinger’s Cat.’

Staggeringly, he understood. ‘Well, let’s go and see, shall we?’





The only thing that stopped me falling apart completely was that Leon’s visor was down and I couldn’t see his face. I told myself it was some other man who lay at my feet.

We couldn’t get to him. He was buried under a criss-cross of burning timbers. I remember thinking it looked like that child’s game where you have to pick up a coloured stick without disturbing any of the others – I couldn’t remember what it was called.

We heaved and strained at the beams but it wasn’t easy. Every time we pulled at one, something moved somewhere else. It was a giant cat’s cradle of heavy wood.

In the end, Ellis stood back, directing operations, instructing us to lift this end, pull that bit free, hold that one up, slide this one out. It all took time. Too much time. Every now and then he tilted his head and I knew he was listening on his private link. I could guess what they were telling him.

I left them to get on with it, because I was less worried about the timbers under which Leon was pinned and more about the very, very unstable wall towering above us all. Captain Ellis followed my gaze. ‘Keep an eye on that for me, will you, Max. I’m concentrating on getting Chief Farrell free.’

I nodded gratefully, not for one moment taking my gaze from the wall, which gave me an excellent excuse for not seeing what they were doing to Leon. Because I couldn’t even think about it. That he would come so far, survive so much, only to die now, within sight of rescue. And there was nothing I could do. I stared at the wall as if, by sheer strength of will, I could stop it toppling on us all.

Their talk was all of the job in hand. Quiet instructions were issued and carried out without fuss. The medical team had set up drips and were still monitoring his readings – so he was still alive. I stared at the crumbling brickwork. Somewhere out there, a city was dying, but I have no memory of the shouts, the screams, the flames. I watched the wall. There’s an old smuggling saying:

Watch the wall my darling, as the gentlemen go by.

And I did. I watched that wall to within an inch of its life.

And then, suddenly, everything happened at once. The last few timbers were lifted and tossed aside. Whether, in some way, the timbers had been supporting the wall, or whether it was just its time to fall, I don’t know. The wall moved. It leaned. A stream of dust fell down upon us. Small stones rattled down; the precursors of the bigger stuff to come.