Half Moon Chambers (28 page)

* * *

"Vinnie. Vince!"

I could still hear. Exclamations of surprise
were
popping out of the crowd around me, and a
few
less sympathetic cackles from kids. It was
best
I kept my face where it was, buried in the crook of
my
elbow. I'd be okay if I didn't breathe. Familiar
footsteps
slapped on the pavement nearby, then
there
was a scrape as Jack skidded to a halt beside
me
. "What the hell are you doing?"

I had to tell him. Had to keep on doing it. To
that
end I had to lift my head, sit up, inhale.

"Gallery. Got to... get there."

"Okay. Then for fuck's sake let me get you a
cab
."

"No good. Not in this traffic."

"Give us your badge. I'll commandeer one
across
the square." I couldn't unclench my fists,
and
he reached into my jacket. We looked nothing
alike
but people seldom glanced past the insignia.

"God, you're a mess. Hang on."

I did. I knelt on the pavement, literally
hanging
on to the nothing I held in my fists. I was
breathing
now, but with hollow sucking sounds that
mortified
me. I could taste blood. The side of my
face
felt skinned raw but that was nothing
--
a
tingle
, a treat, a welcome distraction from the dull
explosion
taking place inside my spine. Through a
field
of red-green blotches I watched Jack run
back
to me. The taxi was coming after, picking a
cautious
route across the pedestrianised square.

He hoisted me up. "You okay?"

"You know that... screaming like a bitch I
talked
about?"

"Yeah."

"That's what I'm doing inside."

His arms were warm and strong and he held
me
a second longer than I needed him to, but I
understood
what he was offering: briefly hid my
face
on his shoulder and let go a single muffled
howl
. Okay. Now I could contain the rest. "Come
on
." I glanced at the apprehensive-looking driver.

"Let's go, if your cabbie will have me in the car."

"You're bleeding like a pig. I wouldn't have
you
in mine."

He hustled me into the back seat, followed me
there
and gave the driver orders to get to
the
Langring, speed restrictions lifted for this special
occasion
. The roads on the far side of the plaza
were
clear. Once we were moving, I fell back.

This was the worst jarring I'd given myself in a
while
. I drove my fingertips into the plastic
upholstery
, trying to accommodate the pain, let it
run
through me. Fighting it was useless. I was
useless
in its grasp. "I've decided."

"What?"

"The second op. I've got to have it. If it puts
me
in a wheelchair outright, then
--
all right. At
least
I'll know. But I can't be stuck like this. I have
to
be able to get to him if he needs me."

Jack handed me a napkin from the restaurant.

"To Rowan, I'm guessing."

"Yeah. If there's any chance at all. I have to
be
able to run."

"And Rowan's why you're not free any more."

I nodded. I couldn't speak. I'd have been
kinder
, found some words, but the gallery was in
sight
now, cupola gleaming richly in the sun.

Making the gap disappear was all I cared about.

Jack told the cabbie to run us right up to the door,
and
never mind the bluebell-carpet pavement. I
had
some command over my limbs now. I half-fell
out
into the shining blue mist, hauled myself
upright
and slipped through the glass doors into the
foyer
.

Some instinct made me move quietly. The
normal
crowd was milling round the gallery shop,
looking
dubiously at its efforts to reduce Van Gogh
to
trinkets. They were fine.

But the desk staff caught my eye. Their
movements
were just slightly off. Self-conscious,
stiff
. The girl at the cash register in particular...

The doors hissed behind me and I gestured to Jack
to
slow down, to see what I was seeing. It was the
same
kid who'd tried to give Rowan the heads-up
last
time I'd been here. She looked as if she'd
failed
again. She was wrapping up some keyrings
and
fridge magnets for a grinning little boy, but her
attention
wasn't on him: her body language
screaming
out a message concerning the man
propped
casually against the counter, leafing
through
a catalogue. I couldn't see his right hand.

I turned to Jack, as if for casual conversation.

We'd been a very good team. He picked me up
instantly
, pulling some change from his pocket as if
we
needed to buy postcards for the folks back
home
. He said softly, "Weapon?"

"Yeah. Behind the leaflet stand. Bastard's got
her
point-blank."

"Whole town's falling apart today. I'll take
this
one. You go round the back, see if you can find
your
lad."

I'd have argued, but he looked the tourist part,
and
I had just nosedived onto concrete. I was close
enough to half
-lipread,
half
-overhear
the conversation
at the desk. The girl had finished with
her
customer now and was standing rigidly, staring
into
space. The others were going about their
business
with desperate assiduity. I could patch
together
what the guy with the catalogue was
saying
to her.
Keep it calm. We only want him,
okay
? Just Rowan. Once we're done...

Jack smiled. It was a hell of a smile now,
amped
up with US orthodonty and set off by his
tan
. "Oh, my God," he declared, with what I hoped
was
creditable West Coast enthusiasm. "Honey,
look
! We've
got
to get one of those for
Auntie
Jane." He swept up to the counter, attention fixed
on
some invisible gadget against the back wall.

The girl stared at him helplessly. "That one," he
said
to her, pointing. "Right at the very back. Can
you
get one out for me?" I saw the gunman's tiny
nod
of permission, saw how Jack waited till she
had
retreated to the shelves and given him enough
safe
distance. Her hands shook on the boxes and
she
knocked one down. "Oh, dear," Jack went on
sympathetically
. "Honey, can't you see it? I'll pop
round
and get it myself."

Dangerous. Deadly, if he got his timing
wrong
. But he'd always been a talented bastard,
with
just the right dash of insanity to pull off a
stunt
. I crept along the back of the shop, concealing
my
grazes as best I could. Just as I reached the
steps
up into the exhibition halls, he made his
move
. The counter had a hatch the staff could raise
to
let themselves in and out: he got a hand
underneath
it, slammed it upward and into the
gunman
's face.

Chaos exploded among the John Martin
postcards
and
I heart art
mugs. The poor hostage
girl
, released from gunpoint, began to shriek like a
car
alarm. The gunman flew backover into a book
stand
. Jack leapt after him. He got the drop and
knocked
the weapon clear, but his opponent was a
big
bastard and a fistfight broke out in the
avalanche
of paperbacks. I was pretty sure Jack
would
not only win but enjoy it, and I ran far
enough
up the steps to be seen. He'd given me back
my
badge. Waving it, I waited till enough of the
crowd
were looking. "Police! Clear the shop." I
didn
't want a stampede. "Nice and calm, please.
There's no danger." As if in flat contradiction, a
gunshot
instantly cracked out from inside the
building
. "Go!" I yelled. "Don't bloody trample.

Use both doors."

Jack sat up from his tussle long enough to
indicate
the weapon that had skittered to the foot of
the
steps. "Grab it! I'm okay here. I'll get backup."

A look passed between us. He could have used the
pistol
himself. I knew why he was leaving it to me.

The gunman writhed beneath him and fetched him a
slap
round the jaw. "Ooh, you sod. Vince, go!"

Chapter Sixteen

I
ran into the exhibition hall. It was my
niece
Lily's favourite, the glassware. There was
certainly
a hell of a lot of it about
--
I skidded on a
constellation
of shards from the shattered display
case
. The jellyfish monsters, vases and plates and
eye
-popping Victorian fantasies, sat unshielded on
their
shelves. Behind them on the parquet floor
was
Rowan
--
my Rowan, fragile artist, curator,
collector
of books and delicate Far Eastern
antiquities
--
locked in a scrap with a crop-headed
thug
twice his size. They were rolling like
weasels
, limbs tangled. A second gunman was
circling
them, plainly trying to decide whether to
put
a bullet through his mate in order to finish off
the
prey.

I could help him choose. I strode up behind
him
, tucked the muzzle of my borrowed weapon
into
the back of his skull. "Not today," I rasped,
and
grabbed his arm as he began his startled
switch
-round turn. "Drop it." I hadn't brought cuffs
out
with me for a stroll in the city and a nice Greek
lunch
. I didn't like clubbing people round the head
with
guns, but it did beat shooting them, and I
braced
and clobbered him down.

Rowan and his dance partner hit another
cabinet
. It toppled and shattered, sending fragments
flying
to my feet. I grabbed the discarded weapon.

Now I was armed to the teeth, and I stood no more
chance
than the man I'd just disabled of getting a
decent
shot. I didn't want to shout at them to freeze.

The second thug was armed too, most of Rowan's
efforts
going into stopping him from drawing the
gun
. I edged around the sea of broken glass.

Neither of them had seen me yet
--
maybe I could
just
leap in...

There was no need. Rowan surged up from
under
and knocked his opponent's skull hard off the
floor
. Then he straddled him. A big Venetian vase
lay
within arm's reach. It was a beauty, thick violet
glass
streaked with gold, somehow intact after its
fall
. Centuries old. Rowan grabbed it. He lifted it
high
in both hands.

At last he saw me. He looked as if he'd been
on
a long hard road-trip to hell. There were
shadows
under his eyes, marks of a life-and-death
struggle
that made this current fistfight look like
puppies
brawling in a basket. He didn't smile at
me
. His face didn't alter at all, but still a
transformation
took it. He focussed, intensified.

His lights came on. He had no idea whatsoever
how
my own were blazing up in response. In my
mind
right until now I'd fought the image of him
burning
, trapped and lost in Half Moon Chambers.

I couldn't speak, not even to say his name.

The half-stunned thug tried to sit up. Rowan
glanced
between him and the beautiful vase.

"Vince," he said. "This is too good for him.
Catch."

I grabbed the vase out of mid-air. It had been
a
good throw, powerful and accurate. Rowan
fetched
his man a solid roundhouse punch instead,
and
sat back gasping. For a moment he closed his
eyes
. Then he got up and stood unsteadily.

Fragments of glass pattered out of his hair and
slithered
off his clothing. He brushed the worst of
it
away. Then he turned and walked away into the
shadows
.

He wasn't fragile. Vulnerable, yes, but that
was
a different thing. I looked at the great big lad
he
'd just put down, sleeping beatifically in the
broken
glass. I remembered an arm going round me
as
I struggled up the stairs of my building
--
fine
and
lean and tough as steel. I allowed myself to
see
in my mind's eye the battle that must have gone
on
in his cell at St Mary's. I hadn't dared look until
now
. I'd watched my brother in the throes of
withdrawal
, and a dozen others like him. I knew
what
it took to survive.

He'd set off towards the restoration rooms.

Tourists were clustering in the exhibition hall. I set
the
vase down and dodged between them, aiming
for
the double doors I'd first opened a lifetime ago,
when
the world had been nothing to me but a
concrete
desert where I lived alone. I pushed them
wide
apart now. "Rowan?"

He was standing with his back to me. He'd
been
working on an empty frame, a huge tarnished
medieval
thing propped against the wall. Had that
been
the price the gallery boss had demanded for
letting
him keep his job? Half of the frame was
dingy
, the rest restored to softly gleaming gold.

Rowan had a pot of gilding in one hand, a brush in
the
other. As I watched, he took up position in
front
of the far wall. His stance was assessing,
thoughtful
, as if confronting an enemy or the oldest
friend
he had, a friend lost to him for so long he
couldn
't be sure of his allegiance.

The wall was panelled in dark wood. The
first
stroke of the gilding leapt out across it. He
said
, distinctly, "This is for Val Foster."

I didn't understand. The only reward she
deserved
was the twenty-year sentence the judge
would
hand down at her trial
--
much reduced on
account
of her plea, but good enough to smash her
empire
apart. Behind me, frightened visitors were
starting
to gather. I thrust out an arm across the
doorway
. Sirens were howling in the street
outside
. I hoped to God Jack was all right. I knew I
should
go and check, but I couldn't tear myself
away
.

"And this is for Goran Maric. This is for the
first
time I put their fucking filth in my veins."

I got it now. Rowan was painting. The golden
landscape
rising on the gallery wall, the golden
man
emerging from its centre, were more vivid
even
than the scenes in Half Moon Chambers, and
he
was working clean. Lucidly clear and sober. He
threw
me one incandescent glance then plunged on.

The first wall wasn't big enough. Another gilded
angel
sprang up on the second, reaching out both
hands
towards his friend. "For the first time I
carried
. For every time they made me. Every time I
let
them."

He was furious. I could feel his heat from
where
I stood. This was his vengeance on the
world
that had devoured him, the only redress he
need
seek. He moved in a blur and the sun burst
over
the dreamscape mountains, lighting the whole
room
. This was how I'd seen him in the basement
car
park
--
reaching so hard and high for his art that
he
had to dance. And it was all just him.

"Clyde! What in the name of
God
do you think
you
're doing?"

I spun round. Rowan had an audience now, a
gaggle
of open-mouthed punters who probably
thought
he was an installation of some kind. In
front
of them stood a plump little man in a suit, his
face
puce with disbelief. He had to be the
manager
, eyes popping out of his skull at the
outrage
being perpetrated on his gallery's walls. I
smiled
. For the second time that day I pulled my
badge
. "You'll have to step back, sir. Mr Clyde is
helping
us with our enquiries."

Rowan finished his work. He dropped the
paint
can where he stood, and one final gold streak
shot
out across the floor, a comet or a coda or a
fiery
full stop. He looked at me. "It was for
everything
they did to me, Vince," he said, his
breath
coming raggedly. "Everything I did to
myself
. Oh, my God, you're bleeding. What
happened
to you?"

He was human again. I opened my arms. He
came
across the floor to me in long swift strides.

He crashed against me hard and I cried out then
broke
into laughter
--
we would always hit each
other
at full speed, and that wouldn't matter; we
would
conjoin pain and passion and never mind
the
bruising. I clutched him tight, hauling in a
lungful
of his scent, grabbing a handful of his hair.

"Jesus! I thought you were dead!"

"Yes, love. So did I."

"No, I mean..." I shut up. No good trying to
explain
to him here that his home was gone,
everything
he possessed. Anyway he didn't give
me
time. He seemed oblivious to his boss, the
crowd
, and I forgot them too as he pushed me back
from
him, staring into my face. It was only for a
moment
. Then he took my jaw between his hands
and
pressed his mouth to mine.