Night of Error. Desmond Bagley

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      ‘If you can get tickets,’ I said. ‘I don’t feel like queueing.’

      ‘I’ll get them,’ he said confidently. ‘I know someone who owes me a few favours. Look, drop me right here and I’ll see you at the flat in half an hour, or maybe a bit longer.’

      I dropped him and when I got to where I lived I took Mark’s suitcase first because it came handiest, then I went back to the car for Geordie’s gear. For some time I pottered about estimating what I’d need for a trip away with him, but I had most of what I needed and the list of things I had to get was very short and didn’t take long to figure out.

      After a while I found myself looking at the suitcase. I picked it up, put it on the bed and opened it and looked at the few remnants of Mark’s life. I hoped that when I went I’d leave more than a few books, a few clothes and a doubtful reputation. The clothing was of no particular interest but, as I lifted up a jacket, a small leather-bound notebook fell out of the breast pocket.

      I picked it up and examined it. It had obviously been used as a diary but most of the entries were in shorthand, once Pitman’s, but adapted in an idiosyncratic way so that they were incomprehensible to anyone but the writer – Mark.

      Occasionally there were lines of chemical and mathematical notation and every now and then there was a doodled drawing. I remembered that Mark had been a doodler even at school and had been ticked off often because of the state of his exercise books. There wasn’t much sense to be made of any of it.

      I put the diary on my dressing table and turned to the larger notebooks. They were much more interesting although scarcely more comprehensible. Apparently, Mark was working on a theory of nodule formation that, to say the least of it, was hare-brained – certainly from the point of view of orthodox physical chemistry. The time scale he was using was fantastic, and even at a casual glance his qualitative analysis seemed out of line.

      Presently I heard Geordie come in. He popped his head round the door of the bedroom and said triumphantly, ‘I’ve got the tickets. Let’s have a slap-up dinner first and then go on to the theatre.’

      ‘That’s a damned good idea,’ I said. I threw the notebooks and the clothing back into the case and retied the lid down.

      Geordie nodded at it. ‘Find anything interesting?’

      I grinned. ‘Nothing, except that Mark was going round the bend. He’d got hold of some damn fool idea about nodules and was going overboard about it.’

      I shoved the case under the bed and began to get dressed for dinner.

      III

      It was a good dinner and a better show and we drove home replete with fine food and excellent entertainment. Geordie was in high spirits and sang in a cracked and tuneless voice one of the numbers from the show. We were both in a cheerful mood.

      I parked the car outside the block of flats and got out. There was still a thin drizzle of rain but I thought that by morning it would have cleared. That was good; I wanted fine weather for my leave. As I looked up at the sky I stiffened.

      ‘Geordie, there’s someone in my flat.’

      He looked up at the third floor and saw what I had seen – a furtive, hunting light moving at one of the windows.

      ‘That’s a torch.’ His teeth flashed as he grinned in the darkness. ‘It’s a long time since I’ve had a proper scrap.’

      I said, ‘Come on,’ and ran up into the foyer.

      Geordie caught my arm as I pressed for the lift. ‘Hold on, let’s do this properly,’ he said. ‘Wait one minute and then go up in the lift. I’ll take the stairs – we should arrive on your floor at the same time. Covers both exits.’

      I grinned and saluted. ‘Yes, sergeant.’ You can’t keep an old soldier down; Geordie was making a military operation out of catching a sneak thief – but I followed orders.

      I went up in the lift and stepped out into the lighted corridor. Geordie had made good time up the stairs and was breathing as easily as though he’d been strolling on the level. He motioned me to keep the lift door open and reached inside to press the button for the top floor. I closed the door and the lift went up.

      He grinned in his turn. ‘Anyone leaving in a hurry must use the stairs now. Got your key?’

      I passed it to him and we walked to the door of my flat, treading softly. Through the uncurtained kitchen window I could see the flash of a torch. Geordie cautiously inserted the key into the lock. ‘We’ll go in sharpish,’ he whispered, gave the key a twist, threw open the door and plunged into the flat like an angry bull.

      As I followed on his heel I heard a shout – ’Ojo!’ - and the next thing I knew was a blinding flash in my eyes and I was grappling with someone at the kitchen door. Whoever it was hit me on the side of the head, it must have been with the torch because the light went out. I felt dizzy for a moment but held on, thrusting forward and bringing my knee up sharply.

      I heard a gasp of pain and above it the roar of Geordie’s voice from further in the flat – possibly the bedroom.

      I let go my grip and struck out with my fist, and yelled in pain as my knuckles hit the kitchen door. My opponent squirmed out from where I had him pinned and was gone through the open door of the flat. Things were happening too fast for me. I could hear Geordie swearing at the top of his voice and the crash of furniture. A light tenor voice called, ‘Huid! Huid! No disparéis! Emplead cuchillos!’ Then suddenly someone else banged into me in the darkness and I struck out again.

      I knew now that this assailant would certainly have a knife and possibly a gun and I think I went berserk – it’s wonderful what the adrenal glands will do for a man in an emergency. In the light from the corridor I caught a glimpse of an upraised knife and I chopped viciously at the wrist. There was a howl of pain and the knife clattered to the floor. I aimed a punch at where I thought a stomach was – and missed.

      Something was swung at the side of my head again and I went down as a black figure jumped over me. If he hadn’t stopped to kick at my head he would have got clean away, but I squirmed to avoid his boot and caught his leg, and he went sprawling into the corridor.

      I dived after him and got between him and the stairs, and he stood in a crouch looking at me, his eyes darting about, looking for escape. Then I saw what he must have swung at my head in the flat – it was Mark’s suitcase.

      Suddenly he turned and ran, towards the blank end of the corridor. ‘I’ve got him now,’ I thought exultantly, and went after him at a dead run. But he had remembered what I’d forgotten – the fire escape.

      He might have got away then but once again I tackled him rugby-fashion so that I floored him just short of the fire escape. The fall knocked the breath out of me and he improved the shining hour by kicking me in the face. Then, as I was shaking my head in dizziness, he tossed Mark’s case into the darkness.

      By the time I regained my feet I was between him and the metal staircase and he was facing me with his right hand, now unencumbered, darting to his pocket. I saw the gun as he drew it and knew the meaning of real fear. I jumped for him and he side-stepped frantically trying to clear the gun from his pocket – but the foresight must have caught СКАЧАТЬ