Justin clicked his tongue disapprovingly. “Foolishness,” he said. All his composure had come back now that he was in the house, with the four of us safely around him and something useful to do. “Lexie, your hands.”
I held them out to him. They were a mess, covered with dirt and blood, knuckles split open and half my nails broken down to the quick-so much for my pretty silver manicure. Justin drew in his breath with a little hiss. “Good heavens, what did you do to the poor man? Not that he didn’t deserve it. Come here, where I can see.” He steered me into Abby’s armchair, under the pole lamp, and knelt on the floor beside me. The bowl gave off a cloud of steam and disinfectant, a warm reassuring smell.
“Do we call the cops?” Abby asked Daniel.
“God, no,” said Rafe, dabbing at his nose and checking his fingers for blood. “Are you mad? They’ll just give us the same old spiel: ‘Thanks for reporting it, there’s not a chance in hell we’ll ever catch the perpetrator, get a dog, bye.’ This time they might even arrest us-one look and you can tell we’ve been in a fight. You think Laurel and Hardy will care who started it? Justin, can I have that cloth for a second?”
“In a minute.” Justin was pressing the damp cloth against my knuckles, so gently I could barely feel it. “Does that sting?” I shook my head.
“I’ll bleed on the sofa,” Rafe threatened.
“You will not. Tip your head back and wait.”
“Actually,” Daniel said, still frowning thoughtfully at the note, “I think calling the police might not be a bad idea, at this point.”
Rafe sat up fast, forgetting all about his nose. “Daniel. Are you serious? They’re petrified of those apes down in the village. They’d do anything to get on Glenskehy’s good side, and arresting us for assault would definitely do that.”
“Well, I wasn’t thinking of the local police,” Daniel said. “Hardly. I meant Mackey or O’Neill-I’m not sure which would be better. What do you think?” he asked Abby.
“Daniel,” Justin said. His hand had stopped moving on mine and that high, panicky note was seeping back into his voice. “Don’t. I don’t want-They’ve been leaving us alone, since Lexie got back-”
Daniel gave Justin a long, inquisitive look over his glasses. “They have, yes,” he said. “But I seriously doubt that means they’ve dropped the investigation. I’m sure they’re putting a considerable amount of energy into looking for a suspect, I think they would be very interested to hear about this one, and I think we have an obligation to tell them, whether it’s convenient for us or not.”
“I just want to go back to normal.” Justin’s voice was almost a wail.
“Yes, well, so do we all,” Daniel said, a little testily. He winced, kneaded at his thigh muscle, winced again. “And the sooner all this is over and someone’s charged, the sooner we can do exactly that. I’m sure Lexie, for example, would feel a lot better if this man were in custody. Wouldn’t you, Lex?”
“Fuck custody, I’d feel a lot better if the little bastard hadn’t got away so fast,” I said. “I was having fun.” Rafe grinned and leaned over to high-five my free hand.
“Regardless of the Lexie thing,” Abby said, “this is a threat. I don’t know about you, Justin, but I don’t particularly want to be burned out.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, he won’t do it,” Rafe said. “Arson takes a certain level of organizational ability. He’d blow himself up long before he got anywhere near us.”
“You want to bet the house on that?”
The mood in the room had turned. The tight-knit, giddy exhilaration was gone, evaporated with a vicious sizzle like water hitting a hot stove; no one was having fun any more.
“I’d rather bet on this guy’s stupidity than on the cops’ brainpower. We need them like we need a hole in the head. If the moron comes back-and he won’t, not after tonight-we sort him out ourselves.”
“Because so far,” Abby said tautly, “we’ve been doing such a brilliant job of dealing with our own problems by ourselves.” She whipped the popcorn bowl off the floor with a tight, angry movement and squatted down to collect the glass.
“No, leave it; the police will want to see it all in situ,” Daniel said, dropping heavily into an armchair. “Ouch.” He grimaced, fished Uncle Simon’s revolver out of his back pocket and put it on the coffee table.
Justin’s hand froze in midair. Abby, straightening up fast, almost fell backwards.
If it had been anyone else I wouldn’t have batted an eyelid. But Daniel: something cold as seawater surged over my whole body, whipped the breath out of me. It was like seeing your father drunk or your mother in hysterics: that freefall in your stomach, cables snapping as the elevator gets ready to plummet hundreds of sheer stories, unstoppable, already gone.
“You cannot be serious,” Rafe said. He was on the edge of another fit of laughter.
“What the hell,” Abby inquired, very quietly, “did you think you were going to do with that?”
