Elric to Rescue Tanelorn - Michael Moorcock [179]
“You have evidence for any of this?” Von Bek lit another drugged cigarette.
“The blade doubtless matches the wounds, but I’m not sure we want to release it into the world, do we? You are right, count. I am unable to arrest you, but it has given me some satisfaction to solve this case and confront, as I had hoped, such an unusual killer. At a stroke or two you have considerably improved the probity of politics and business in this country. Yet still I disapprove of such actions.” He would not shake the pale hand when it was offered.
With a regretful shrug, Count Ulrich turned away. “Differing times and cultures refuse us a friendship. Can I offer you some more of the St. Odhran?”
But Begg, oddly depressed, made his excuses and left.
Returning home through the old year’s snows, he reflected that, while one act of barbarism did not justify another, he could not in his heart say that this had been an unrewarding Christmas. He looked forward to returning to the warmth of his own fireside, to opening the black trophy case Lady Ratchet had brought him, to stare with quiet ecstasy into that blazing miracle of confirmation, that great vessel of faith and conscience: the Grail, of which he was now the only steward.
SIR MILK-AND-BLOOD
SIR MILK-AND-BLOOD
(1996)
“WHAT’S THE TIME,” he says. “Pad—what’s the time? My watch has stopped.”
“Four-thirty,” says Patrick. “Shouldn’t he have turned up by now?”
“He’s always on time. He’ll be here. God knows I’ll be glad to get the release.” He reaches for his cup. “It’s bothering me, Pad. I can’t get rid of it.”
“You’re bound to feel bad. After all, your brother—”
“Yes. But it’s the kids, see…”
“There are no ‘innocent victims’ in a war,” says Patrick. “Not in this war, anyway. You always reminded me how many of our children died to make them rich.”
“Pad, I don’t ever want to do that again. I didn’t join to kill kids.” As he looked at his companion’s frowning face he knew he was saying too much. Even if you thought it, you never said it.
“Well, it’s not likely either of us will have to do it again,” says Patrick, ignoring this breach of etiquette. “In a little while we’ll have our new passports and can be out of here. Anywhere we like, so long as it’s not Ireland or the UK. We can go to America. You’ve got relatives there, haven’t you?”
“They read the papers,” he says. But, anyway, he thinks, he won’t be free there. He’s ashamed to see his family. He already knows what they think of him. There isn’t a news channel in the world that hasn’t shown the pictures of the ruptured tram, the children’s bodies thrown everywhere, the weeping mothers. And his and Patrick’s unshaven faces staring crazily out at them, their eyes reflecting the harsh flash of the camera. “By God, Pad, don’t you wish you’d never got into this?”
“I don’t think like that,” says Patrick. “Since I was thirteen all I’ve ever done is this. I mean what else is there? What would you be doing now, if you hadn’t joined the movement?”
“I was going to be a schoolteacher, God help me, before I got into politics.” He lights a Gitane and goes to stare through the streaked grey window at the rain falling into the filthy water of the canal basin far below, where all six of the city’s great underground waterways emerged into daylight and met at the infamous Quai D’Hiver. “I thought I could do more good in the movement.”
As soon as he and Patrick were identified as the surviving bombers and their photographs had been published, they left London and traveled all the way to Paris from the Hook of Holland on a barge. It had taken a couple of weeks, but after a fortnight the authorities assumed they were far away from Europe. As it promised, the movement looked after them. Now their orders are to stay put until their “release” comes. They have been told who to expect. When he arrives, there will be no mistaking him.
“I