Lies Sleeping (Peter Grant, #7)(102)

Ack, I thought. Melodrama.

Walbrook turned to me and said, ‘You still here?’

And then I was falling through the rain again.

Then we hit. But not the flagstones.

We hit something white and cold that buckled under the impact. Softer than cement, but still hard enough to rattle my brain. And I didn’t have a chance to do anything useful before we rolled off the roof of the Transit van and fell the last metre and a half. This time we hit stone and it was even more painful than I was expecting.

The whole of my left side from shoulder to knee went numb, in that worrying numb-now pain-later way of a major injury, and the air was literally knocked out of my body. I was trying to breathe in but it felt as if my lungs were paralysed. Then I coughed. It hurt, then I breathed in – it was wonderful.

I rolled onto my back and looked up through the gently falling rain to see Lesley frowning down at me from the cornice. Then she vanished and I realised I had about twenty seconds while she ran down the steps. And she’d still have that pistol, wouldn’t she?

The flagstones were slick, so getting up was hard work. And I didn’t like the way my knee hurt. My only consolation was that Martin Chorley was moaning and wasn’t moving any faster than I was. I got to my feet while Chorley was still on his hands and knees. Grabbing him struck me as being too complicated an action and I did consider falling on him, but decided to caution him instead.

I got as far as ‘Anything you say might be’ when he flung out his hand and tried to impello me into the far wall of the cemetery. Fortunately he was in pain and I was ready with a shield – even so, I skidded back on my heels from the force of it. At which point Lesley came out of the main doors and, without hesitating, ran up to Chorley and kicked him in the stomach.

‘He’s not dead!’ she screamed. ‘You fucking fucker! You didn’t kill him!’

This time the impello hit home, but on Lesley not me, and she went sprawling onto her back. Chorley took the opportunity to climb to his feet.

‘That’s hardly my fault!’ he shouted. ‘You can blame your fucking boyfriend.’

The rain was getting heavier and was dribbling into my eyes, but Nightingale has made me train in worse weather. I wondered if Chorley had ever practised in the rain – somehow I didn’t think so.

Lesley got to her feet and that’s how we found ourselves recreating the stand-off scene from The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, only wetter, closer together, and in central London.

I caught Lesley’s eye for a fraction of a fraction of a second and tilted my head at Chorley. He didn’t catch the gesture, but was hesitating because he didn’t know which one of us to attack first.

We jumped, as we had jumped belligerent drunks every bloody weekend for two whole years. I went high, she went low, and we had the fucking Faceless Man face down on the ground and wearing my speedcuffs before you could say ‘properly authorised restraint technique’.

Then we both hauled him to his feet and looked at each other, and sniggered.

Chorley started to react but I jerked the speedcuffs up in the approved manner and broke his chain of concentration.

‘What now?’ asked Lesley.

‘You turn supergrass, don’t you?’ I said.

‘You’re not serious?’ she said.

‘I asked the CPS to draw up the paperwork ages ago.’

Chorley moved again and this time I stuck my finger in his ear and wriggled it to disrupt any spell formation. This I knew from conducting experiments with Nicky’s enthusiastic help. The trick is to keep changing the method of disruption – it didn’t hurt that Chorley was dazed and in pain after the fall.

Still, backup couldn’t arrive fast enough – I was listening for sirens.

‘I’m not talking about me,’ she said, and pulled Chorley’s nose. ‘You can’t be serious about arresting him.’

‘That’s the job,’ I said.

‘He’ll escape,’ she said, which reminded me to tweak the cuffs again.

‘We’ve got plans,’ I said. ‘And brand new holding cells.’

‘Oh shit,’ said Lesley.

‘And thanks to you I may even have a—’

Lesley pulled out her pistol and shot Martin Chorley in the head.

I flinched as something that was not rain splashed my face and as, with no more than a rustle of his clothing, Chorley flopped bonelessly to the ground. I looked back at Lesley, who had taken a step backwards so she could point the gun at my face without it being within arm’s reach.

‘Check his pulse,’ she said.

Slowly I squatted down and fumbled in the wet collar of Martin Chorley’s coat. I felt his neck for a pulse. Nothing. Not really surprising, given there was an entry wound where his right eye should have been.

‘Is he dead?’ asked Lesley. The rain was running down her face, but her aim was steady.

I stood and the barrel of the gun followed me up.

‘What now?’ I asked. ‘Am I next?’

Lesley laughed. It surprised me – I think it surprised her too.

‘You pillock,’ she said. ‘I did this for you. If you’d helped we could have done it nice and clean and nobody would have been the wiser. Do you think anyone wanted a trial? Do you really think you could have kept him banged up in Belmarsh without him escaping?’