“All right back there?” he asked.
Sister Megan was with Sister Henrietta, whose kneecap had been placed back in position and then covered with bandages. The blood was already seeping through. We asked for an expedited transit of the Salisbury range and were at the Lola Vavoom Discount Sofa Warehouse See Press for Details Memorial Hospital less than twenty minutes later.
“Are you sure you don’t want to be checked over?” asked Finisterre after we had offloaded the recently renamed Brother Henry. “Bruised and sore, but I’ll be fine,” I told him. “Despite being pretty much useless, I actually enjoyed myself.”
“Don’t get too used to it. You’re chief librarian now: less running around waving a pistol and more in charge of policy and procurement, appointments and budget responsibility.”
“I am, aren’t I?”
If I had clout, it was time to use it. I called the office to tell Duffy that I needed to see Swindon’s Goliath representative in my office first thing in the morning “as a matter of the utmost urgency.”
Duffy said he would take care of it, then asked me what time I wanted to be picked up in my car in the morning and whether I had any “dietary considerations” as regarding lunch. I was going to tell him I didn’t need a car, but since I couldn’t drive myself and it wasn’t fair to use Landen as a taxi service, I told him 9:00 A.M. and that I ate most things except okra and marzipan.
“James?” I said as soon as I had rung off.
“Yes?” he replied, scooting low across Liddington Castle as he made the short hop to Aldbourne.
“Why did we only find Crabbe’s descender?”
We had been to look at Jack and Crabbe’s escape route before Smalls had arrived. The rope was still there, and the descender used by Crabbe—but no sign of Jack’s.
“Logic would dictate that he escaped using another method. Not sure how, though—a BASE jump would be the only other way out, but there was no evidence of a parachute either. Unless you have any bright ideas?”
I didn’t, which raised the question: If Jack didn’t parachute out and didn’t go down the rope, how did he escape?
19.
Tuesday: Home
From when it first opened, motorway services were always a welcome mix of good food, restful surroundings, clean and spacious hotels and reasonably priced shopping. Some people ventured solely onto the motorway to visit these oases of calm on the bellowing asphalt, and poor food and less-than-exemplary service were simply not tolerated. When Aust Services lost a prestigious Dunlop Star from its rating, the manager, overcome by shame, set himself on fire and threw himself into the river Severn.
J. Fforde, Motorway Services and
Sarcasm, Unsubtly Used
“Holy cow!” said Landen when he saw me. “What happened to you?”
“Remember how Daisy Mutlar said she would devote her life to silent introspection of an obscure religion if she couldn’t marry you?”
“We all make threats like that. No one takes them seriously.”
“Daisy was totally serious. She’s now Mother Daisy over at the Salisbury Lobsterhood.”
“She always did want to be a mother. She did all this to you?”
“Only that one and . . . that one,” I replied, showing him the bruises that had been Daisy-inflicted.
“The rest was Jack Schitt and one of his cronies.”
“I’ve a feeling you weren’t reminiscing about the old days over a glass of wine.”
“Very astute of you.”
We went through to the kitchen, where we exchanged passwords before I sat at the large kitchen table and related all that had happened. While I talked, he fetched some antiseptic and a packet of cotton wool. I had numerous scratches, cuts and abrasions from when the trapdoor was blown open, and I winced as he tended to them. When I’d finished speaking, he stared at me for a while, concerned rather than shocked.
“Trouble really does follow you around, doesn’t it? Even when you’re just a librarian.”
“There’s nothing ‘just’ about being a librarian,” I corrected him. “And as for Jack Schitt—I’ve a feeling we’ve not heard the last of him.”