And the Rest Is History(60)

Ronan caught sight of me and smiled. He actually smiled, saying, ‘Excellent. Three birds with one stone.’

Neither Leon nor Guthrie spared me a glance. All their attention was on Ronan. They brought up their weapons with a snap and slowly moved towards him, yelling at him to surrender. That there was no escape. To put his hands in the air. Now.

I should have guessed. We should all have guessed. Ronan was far too calm. He was even smiling. Slowly, obediently, he raised his hands, just as he’d been told to do, and they weren’t empty. He held a small, round object in each hand. Occasionally, a small red light flickered ominously.

I had no idea what they could be, but they were enough to bring both Leon and Guthrie to a halt.

Someone must have switched off the alarms because sudden silence crashed down. Except for a tinny metallic voice.

‘Sixteen. Fifteen. Fourteen…’

A countdown.

Leon, apparently noticing me for the first time yelled, ‘Max, get out of here.’

Someone pushed me out of the way, and Markham, appearing out of nowhere, shouted, ‘Max. Go,’ and raced past me. He too was armed.

I flew back towards Dieter, still standing in the entrance to Number Five. ‘Do something, Dieter. For God’s sake. Help them.’

‘I am helping them,’ he said, grimly and grabbed my arm, dragging me into the pod.

He shouted, ‘Door,’ and then the world went white.

But for all the wrong reasons.





I faltered to a halt and looked at them. ‘Tell me what happened next.’

Peterson stared at his lap for a moment and then said, ‘Max, I’m so sorry.’

I said, ‘No,’ because I think I thought if I didn’t accept it then it couldn’t be true. I even wished I’d never said anything and continued in my happy state of cotton wool-filled ignorance. For the rest of my life. For ever.

He said again, ‘I’m so sorry, Max, but yes.’

‘No, you’re wrong.’

‘We’re not wrong.’

‘You must be. It’s Leon – he always – he never… There’s been a stupid mistake. You’ve missed something. Have you searched everywhere? Have you…?’

‘Max, there’s nothing left.’

‘I don’t understand. What do you mean, nothing left?’

‘Ronan had explosives. They went off. They destroyed him and his pod. He’s gone for ever.’

‘And Leon?’

‘They were too close, Max. Which we think was what Ronan intended. They were closing in. He probably had only one jump left and he couldn’t get away and so he jumped here, fully intending to do as much damage as possible.’

Three birds with one stone.

‘That’s what he meant, isn’t it? Three birds with one stone. Leon. Ian. And me.’

His face said there was more.

‘Tell me.’

‘Markham didn’t escape the blast, either.’

Too late, I remembered Markham, pushing me back to safety and running towards Ronan, gun drawn. Doing his job. He was doing his job and he died for it. With Leon. And Ian. But, sadly, not me.

I couldn’t take it in. ‘All of them. All three of them? All dead?’

He nodded.

‘And I lived,’ I said, bitterly.

‘Don’t say that.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because … I know. I’ve been here and I know what you’re thinking and you can’t think that, Max. Not for one moment. You mustn’t. You have a little boy. You have duties and responsibilities. Dr Bairstow is devastated. The unit is in pieces. We stand or fall with you. I stand or fall with you. If anything should happen to you … I know how you feel. Many things have ended. Gone for ever. And carrying on without them seems too heavy a burden to bear. But you must, Max. We both must. Neither of us has the luxury of falling apart at the moment.’

Nurse Fortunata came in. She was carrying a tray of tea. Now I knew why there was no Hunter.

Dr Stone looked from one to the other of us. ‘If you can truthfully assure me that both of you are as well as could be expected, then I’ll leave you alone for an hour or so. Please use the time to talk to one another. Max, you need have no concerns over Matthew. He knows there’s been an accident in Hawking, but no more. He has no reason to assume his father was ever here. He’s happy and busy with Miss Lingoss. I advise you leave him with her for a day or so.’

Peterson nodded. ‘He couldn’t be in better hands, Max.’

I nodded. ‘I know. And you’re right. I will tell him. But not now.’

‘No, definitely not now. Give it a day or so.’



Actually, I never told him. I just kept putting it off. I told myself I needed to get on grip on things myself first of all, so I could deal with his questions and emotions. Then I thought I’d put it off until after Hastings. Which made sense. And then after Hastings, summer was coming and he seemed happy and somehow the moment was never quite right and so on and so on.

He never asked what had happened in Hawking. It wasn’t that he was incurious. He was very curious. Almost terminally so sometimes, according to Miss Lingoss, but I think, in his past life, he’d been discouraged from asking questions. Probably quite brutally discouraged. So he shut up, watched what was going on around him, took it all in and kept it all to himself. Occasionally I wondered about this, but he seemed happy, so I dodged the issue and told myself the right moment would present itself. One day.