Restoration

by Guy Adams

  "Haywood!" The voice was the major's… it sounded like he was shouting through treacle.

  No! Not now! Ashe thought.

  The major reared up in front of the window as he forced himself to his feet and stumbled towards Haywood.

  If anything, Haywood's face grew calmer in response to the rather lame attack. It put him back on the defensive and he knew how to handle that.

  "Get back!" Ashe said, tugging Walsingham to one side as Haywood pulled the trigger and put a shell straight into the major's face. A light spray of blood and the lumpen, scrambled egg of brain matter came through the window, glinting slightly as it caught the moonlight.

  Now! Ashe thought, while he reloads!

  He pulled his revolver from his pocket and tried to get an aim through the window. Helen had got to her feet – maybe making a break for the door – and was in the way. He pushed himself through the window, old muscles demanding to know what he thought he was doing. As he hit the floor on the other side he heard the sound of a shell clicking into place and realised he'd been an idiot… started to believe those movies for a minute there, he thought, stupid old man. He rolled onto his back, his left arm throbbing from where he had dropped his weight on it. Hope it's not broken… not that it'll matter in a second…

  "Sorry," he said, dropping the gun and holding his hands out in as deferential manner as he could.

  Haywood was pointing the rifle between Ashe and Helen, his pupils bloated black bullet-holes swamping the irises. He didn't fire but that was as lucky as Ashe was going to get. He glanced at the body of the major, his head now no more than a fur collar of that salt and pepper beard.

  "Need to think," Haywood said, edging to the door, shaky on his feet but not letting the rifle lose its aim. He pulled back the bolt and stood out of the way. "Come in," he called to Walsingham, who needed no further encouragement.

  "Helen," he said as entered, "are you alright?"

  "Just marvellous thank you darling," she replied.

  "Need to think," Haywood repeated. He used the rifle to gesture Helen over to the door. "Outside."

  This is not good, Ashe thought, in a moment this whole situation was going to become untenable. "You don't want to go out there, Haywood," he said, shifting on the floor and grimacing as he placed a flat palm in Kilworth's still warm blood.

  "Need to think," the doctor said again, his mind spasming now, stuck on a single track and seeming unable to veer from it. He gestured with the rifle again.

  Helen grabbed her coat and walked out of the door.

  "Don't, Helen!" Walsingham begged.

  "If you have an alternative I'd be glad to hear it," she said, tugging on her coat as she walked.

  Haywood shifted sideways to the door, keeping the rifle moving, switching back and forth between Walsingham, Ashe and Helen's retreating back.

  "Need to think," he said, one more time, "don't follow."

  Yeah right, thought Ashe, like that's going to happen.

  Haywood vanished through the door and they listened to his steps descend the wooden stairs.

  "What are we to do?" Walsingham asked, close to tears. He wasn't cut out for this sort of thing, Ashe realised. He was a man of display cases and samples, quiet dinner parties and lecture tours. Well, he was going to have to learn… He grabbed the revolver from where it was beginning to stick in the major's blood and moved to the door. He looked out, could just see Haywood and Helen crossing towards the main gate. He didn't trust his aim. If he missed then Haywood would have all the time he needed to shoot Helen. He was only likely to get one chance at this so he'd better be damn sure it was the right one.

  "We follow them," he said to Walsingham, "what else can we do?"

  8.

  Helen Walsingham stumbled ahead of Haywood, screwing her face against the cold wind as she stepped off the wooden steps and into the thin coating of snow in the courtyard. Behind her Haywood showed none of the same signs of discomfort – madness was the warmest outfit of all. "Keep walking," he said, "go to the gate."

  She shuffled forward, her toes suddenly colliding with something on the floor. In the light of the torches she could see it was a small wooden box, the one Spencer had handed to her husband – for certainly she had been watching, eye pressed against the crack in the shutter, she hadn't intended to let them out of her sight for any longer than she needed to. If it's so important, she thought, then it can come with me. She stooped and grabbed it, moving as quickly as she could so as not to antagonise Haywood.

  "What was that?" he asked, not quite delusional enough to have missed it.

  "Dropped something," she replied, saying no more and walking quickly towards the gate and the monk that stood guard against it.

  "Help me?" she asked quietly. Whether the wind was too loud for him to hear or he just didn't understand she couldn't be sure.

  "Don't talk to him," Haywood insisted, having jogged up behind her, the barrel of the rifle pressing into the small of her back. "We want to leave," he shouted at the monk. Again the Tibetan made no response. Haywood pointed at the gate. "Open it!"

  Still no response. Helen suspected the monk knew only too well what Haywood wanted but was disinclined to give it to him.

  Glancing over his shoulder, only too aware even in his drugged state that they would be followed soon enough, Haywood lost his patience. With a yell he swung the rifle's butt at the monk's head, clubbing him to the floor. "Open it!" he screamed at Helen, pointing the gun at her once more.

  She did as she was told, straining as she pulled the heavy bolt to one side and pushed at the gate. Haywood surged forward, the barrel of the rifle nearly cutting her cheek as he came alongside her and threw his own weight against the door. It swung open and he kicked out at her, forcing her outside.

  "We'll freeze to death out there!" she insisted. You before me though, she thought, there's that slim chance.

  "Need to think!" Haywood roared, raising the rifle as if he meant to shoot her here and now, no more deliberation.

  She turned on her heels and moved out onto the mountainside, moving as quickly as her legs could manage.

  9.

  Ashe took the time to pull on his warm clothing and insisted that Walsingham did the same. "We're no use to her if we're crippled by exposure," he insisted. "If he wanted to shoot her he'd have done it already, we just have to hope she doesn't do anything to antagonise him."

  "This is my wife we're talking about," Walsingham moaned, pulling on his coat and gloves despite his protestations. "She does little else but antagonise people."

  "I think you'll find most people can be polite when at the end of a gun," Ashe replied, tugging his hat over his head and ushering Walsingham out of the door.

  They moved quickly down the steps, Ashe scanning the ground beneath the balcony, hoping for sign of the box. There was none. Kusang walked towards them. "Your friend just clubbed one of the monks down," he said, "and took the woman out there. It would be better I think were they not to come back."

  "Hang around," said Ashe, "one of them probably won't."

  They moved to the open gate, Ashe sticking his head around the opening to make sure they weren't going to march right into fire from Haywood's rifle.

  "The minute I get a clear shot," he said to Walsingham, "I'll take it. This needn't end badly for anyone but Haywood." Still, at the back of his head, none of it sat right. Haywood was high, that was clear enough, but Ashe had convinced himself that the man was no murderer. Not that he should trust his instincts on that… as he had to keep reminding himself, he was an ex-college professor, not Columbo. But he did know something about murderers didn't he? After all, didn't he used to be one? You still are… he thought, remembering the feel of discharging his pistol at Whitstable, that raving lunatic who had been so determined to slit Sophie's throat. Oh yes, it seemed he knew a lot about murder once you really got down to it.

  "Just kill him," Walsingham begged, his tears turning to a rime of ice around his squinting eyelids. "T
he first chance you get…"

  Ashe nodded – after all what else could he do? – and they marched out into the snow.

  10.

  Walsingham had a heavy electric flashlight which he shone sporadically into the dark, checking on the footprints left by his wife and Haywood. Ashe found the device frustrating rather than helpful, it could only be used in short bursts, the bulb and old batteries needing constant rest periods between. He thought they were probably better off using the light of the moon and told Walsingham so.

  "All you're doing is signalling to him," he said, "letting him know where we are."

  Walsingham nodded, poking the device back into his coat and trudging behind Ashe in silence.

  It wasn't as if their quarry was that far ahead, reasoned Ashe, they could be almost on top of them for all he knew. The wind stole away any noise but its own, if Haywood was still screaming then it was lost to them.

  The ground undulated in the incline leading away from the monastery, Ashe always afraid that they would stride over one of the peaks of snow only to come face to face with the crazy doctor and his rifle. He held his gun with the safety off, his finger looped out of the trigger guard so that he didn't risk stumbling and blowing his own foot off.

  "There!" said Walsingham, pointing towards a mound in the distance. Ashe saw the silhouettes for himself. One was sat down, the other pacing… Ashe could guess who was who.

  "Okay," he shouted in Walsingham's ear. "We need to play this carefully." He looked at the terrain leading up to the next mound, they would be visible as they descended into the next dip but hopefully hidden from view by the gradient as they climbed the other side. "We need to take the next drop quickly," he shouted, "if we can just get to the lowest point without being seen we'll have surprise on our side."

  Walsingham nodded, though Ashe was only too aware that, with his wife now in view, he was barely listening. He had only one thought in mind and Ashe could sympathise with that blinkered attitude only too well. For Walsingham, life was all about Helen, to Ashe it was Sophie. They weren't so different.

  Ashe waited until it appeared that Haywood had his back to them before grabbing Walsingham's arm and yanking them both over the summit of the mound. This was the worst moment, the point when the two of them would be just as visible against the moonlight as Haywood and Helen. He moved as fast as he could in the thick snow, not running so much as flinging them down the side of the slope, great flurries of snow kicking up all around them. He tightened his grip on the revolver, not taking his eyes off Haywood for a second as they barrelled into the dip. Walsingham lost his footing, stumbling forward into a roll and pulling Ashe after him. Ashe let himself go, better that than lose momentum, he reckoned. The pair of them tumbled like a pair of kids through the drift, gathering snow to them as they went.

  They hit the lowest point and Ashe was only too grateful for the thickness of snow as his body had taken enough knocks already. Gesturing for Walsingham to keep low, they began to climb the far side, moving in a half crawl as they ascended the slope.

  As they got closer the sound of Haywood's shouting began to descend towards them, the wind changing direction and carrying it to them rather than stealing it away. There wasn't much sense in the words – was there much sense in any of this? – but the fever pitch that Haywood had been building towards back at the stables had well and truly hit its crescendo.

  Slowly they approached the peak, Haywood and Helen now only feet away. Ashe tried to catch a breath, determined to enter this moment as calm and focused as possible. He was about to take another life, the knowledge of that tightening his muscles more than even this damned cold could manage. Was this the way of things now? Was this the role he was trapped into playing, the man on the business end of death time and again? It seemed so.

  Walsingham, mistaking Ashe's pause for uncertainty – and maybe he was right – charged over the mound, running towards Haywood with that stupid flashlight in his hand, held aloft like a club. Ashe had little time to react, raising his gun even as Walsingham blocked his clear aim. Somebody else is about to die… Ashe thought, a stupid husband driven lunatic by his obsession for a cold and probably unfaithful wife. Haywood raised the rifle, Helen, shaking from the cold, got to her feet. Here it is, Ashe thought, here comes the gunfire… But Haywood didn't shoot Walsingham, he pulled the trigger sure enough but his aim was still on Helen. What came next was beyond Ashe's comprehension for a moment – but only a moment – he had got better at understanding the impossible these days. Helen vanished, just as the rifle fired. She had tumbled backwards, aware as Ashe had been that the moment had come for a trigger to be pulled. Then she was gone, a great cloud of snow erupting around her that settled to nothing. No, not nothing… even in that meagre light, Ashe caught a glimpse of the box. A dark shape against the white, a tiny glint of the moonlight on its hinges. Then Walsingham was on Haywood, the roar that erupted from him as unlikely a sound for the mild botanist as a barking horse. He brought the flashlight down, and even over the roar of the wind Ashe heard the crack of bone and wood as it met Haywood's skull. The doctor tumbled back, his mad eyes bulging further still. Walsingham hammered them back into their sockets, pounding and pounding with the flashlight, no more able to stop his attack than a bullet can change its course.

  Ashe cleared the summit and grabbed at Walsingham, dropping his – miraculously unfired – revolver into the snow so that he could loop his arms under Walsingham's. He felt a muscle in his stupid old back pop as Walsingham raged against him, determined to continue his assault on the man who had threatened his wife. There was nothing more to be achieved in that regard, it didn't take more than moonlight to tell that. Haywood's forehead was caved in, his mouth slack, eyes white. Walsingham had done what his rage had demanded. Now it was all just fire with nothing to burn.

  "He's dead!" Ashe screamed into Walsingham's ear. "Quit it! He's dead!"

  Eventually Walsingham did, falling back against Ashe, the pair of them on their backs in the snow. The splintered and bloody flashlight was still fixed to Walsingham's hand. Ashe imagined he would have an effort letting go.

  "He shot her." Walsingham moaned eventually. "After everything… he shot her."

  No he didn't, Ashe thought, at least I don't think so. The box did its job just in time. Though you may wish she had taken the bullet later.

  "I killed him," Walsingham said, his voice so quiet that Ashe could barely hear it even though the man's head was right next to his.

  "I know," Ashe replied.

  "Not Haywood," Walsingham replied. "Rhodes. I killed him."

  Ashe sighed, finding that once it was said he had somehow known that too.

  "Shouldn't have been fornicating with my wife." Walsingham said.

  He said nothing more.

  11.

  Eventually, Ashe pulled himself out from underneath Walsingham and walked over to where Helen had vanished. He checked the snow for blood as best he could, it seemed there was none. "Vanished in time," he said to himself, picking up the box and putting it back into his coat pocket. He moved over to Walsingham, who was now utterly lost to himself, staring up into the falling snow as blindly as Haywood only a few feet away.

  "Come on," said Ashe, slapping his face until he saw a sign of life. "Helen's not dead." Yet anyway…

  "Not dead?" Walsingham asked, his voice still thin and dreamy.

  "No, so get on your feet and follow me."

  Ashe began the march back down the mountainside. He didn't check to see if Walsingham followed, once he'd got through to him he knew the man had little choice. He would follow Ashe to ends of the Earth if that's what it took to find his wife. It disgusted Ashe, though mostly because he disgusted himself.

  "Where is she?" Walsingham asked, skittering along next to him. "Where has she gone."

  "You'll see," said Ashe and would say nothing more.

  12.

  Ashe half wondered if they would be refused entry to the monastery but, for once, Kusan
g's willingness to talk seemed to have acted in their favour. "Did you kill him?" the Tibetan asked as they appeared at the gate. "That crazy man of yours… did you kill him?"

  "Yeah," said Ashe, "we killed him. No more talking now. Tomorrow… we'll talk all you like tomorrow."

  For once Kusang didn't argue, whether it was the look in Ashe's eyes or just the relief that there was blood on the mountainside that wasn't his, Ashe neither knew nor cared. He walked up the stairs to the room above the stables, Walsingham trotting along behind him.

  Inside their accommodation, Ashe went straight to Haywood's food bowl, picked it up and sniffed it. There was a bitter smell there, sure as hell wasn't the meat. "Poisoned," Ashe said. "No more a drug addict than he was a murderer…" then he saw the dead body of the major and, for a moment, changed his mind. But no, the major's death was no more the fault of Haywood than an abused dog could be blamed for biting its owner.