“You climbed up Spirit Rock, didn’t you?” Josh reminded her. “That was three times higher than this.”
“That was different. I had my ancestors around me then, to catch me if I fell.”
Josh gripped her hands and kissed her forehead. “I’ll catch you, if you fall.”
They stepped out on to the parapet, one after the other, with the thin young man leading the way. There was nothing between them and the street below except for a low wall of sooty bricks, and they didn’t look very safe. They could see the tops of buses and taxis and people hurrying along the sidewalk. Although it was such a pearly, overcast day they could see right over the rooftops of the Public Record Office toward the misty dome of St Paul’s, and the twin Gothic towers of Tower Bridge. Josh was surprised to see that there were no tall buildings in the City – no NatWest building, no Canary Wharf.
“Hurry up,” snapped the thin young man. “We ain’t got time for seeing the sights.”
He balanced along to the very end of the parapet, and Josh and Nancy followed him, their arms spread wide. “Eat your heart out, Blondin,” said Josh, his heart thumping. Nancy gave a nervous, hysterical laugh.
When the thin young man reached the corner of the building, he crouched down behind the parapet and beckoned them to join him. They looked over the edge and saw the Hooded Men gathered in Star Yard, directly below them. A few curious people were standing around, but only a few, and when the Hooded Men turned their heads toward them they covered their faces with their hands and hurried off.
“Who are these characters?” asked Josh. “Are they like cops, or what?”
“Cops?”
“Policemen. Bobbies. Is that what they are?”
The thin young man didn’t answer him, but stood up, and pointed to the parapet of the building opposite. It was about a foot higher than the building on which they were standing, and it had a curved coping on top of it, encrusted with pigeon-droppings. In fact there was a matronly pigeon sitting on it not far away, blinking at them with suspicion.
“We’ve got to jump,” said the thin young man.
“You’re kidding me,” Josh retorted.
“It’s the only way, guvnor. It’s jump, or give yourself up to the Hoodies. Do you know what they do? They eat the pancreas out of you, while you’re still alive. Or else they make you play the Holy Harp.”
“The Holy Harp? What the hell’s that?”
“I’ll give you the SP later, guvnor. But, believe me, you don’t really want to find out. Not first-hand, anyway.”
Nancy gripped Josh’s arm. “I can’t do this, Josh. I can’t jump across there. It’s much too far.”
They heard shouting inside the derelict building, and the noise of doors being broken and loose floorboards tossed aside. And above it all, the dogs barking. Josh could hear that their handlers had worked them up into a frenzy of fear and anger. They knew that if they didn’t catch their quarry, they would be beaten or even killed. They were hunting for their own survival and nobody could pacify them now.
“Come on, Nance. Those dogs are going to rip us apart.”
“Can’t we just give ourselves up? We haven’t done anything, after all.”
“Ha, ha,” said the thin young man. “You don’t think that you have to do anything, do you? The Hoodies will carve you up, guilty or innocent.”
“Nance,” Josh urged her. “You have to make this jump, whether you’re scared out of your mind or not.” He lifted his finger to her. “Concentrate. That’s all you have to do. Concentrate on the wall at the other side.”
She stood up on top of the parapet, on the very edge. The wind lifted her hair and made her bandanna flutter. Josh heard a banging sound inside the attic, and a handler appeared with two dogs shrieking for breath on the end of a leash.
“Jump!” he shouted at Nancy. She stumbled in her boot-heels and jumped. She managed to catch the top of the parapet opposite, but only just, and she almost lost her grip altogether.
“Josh!” she screamed.
Josh shouted, “I’m coming! Find yourself a toehold!”
“What toehold?” she said, her boots scrabbling at the brickwork. “Josh, there isn’t a toehold!”
“Listen, I’m coming across. I’m coming across and I’m going to take hold of your hand and pull you up.”
The thin young man stared at Josh with his wild blue eyes. “You’re going to have to jump right over her,” he said, in horror. “How are you going to do that?”
Josh looked at the roof behind him. There were no tiles left on it, but the rafters were intact and still studded with large rusty nails. He stood up and started to climb the nearest rafter, hand over hand, using the nails for toeholds.
“Josh!” screamed Nancy. “Josh, my hands are slipping!”
Josh climbed halfway up to the apex of the roof. He could see the dogs now: they were scrambling along the narrow gutter with their handlers close behind. The thin young man had picked up a heavy piece of rafter and was swinging it from side to side, ready to defend himself.
Josh turned, and stood up. He was caught by a sudden gust of wind, and for an endless three seconds he was desperately trying to stop himself from falling.
“Come on, Winward!” He could almost hear his instructor in the Marines, screaming at him in frustration. “Whatever the fuck you’re going to do, don’t just stand there – do it!”
He found his balance, and paused. Then he shouted out, “Yaaahhhhhhh!” and ran down the sloping rafter, jumping between the nails like a gazelle. It was mad, but he was running so fast that he didn’t fall over. He reached the edge of the roof and gave one last hop, skip and jump, which took him right up into the air. And in that split second he thought: Jesus, I’m not going to make it. The parapet loomed up in front of him, much higher than he had expected it to be.
“Hold on!” he screamed at Nancy, because he was sure he was going to hit her, and drag both of them down to the flagstones ninety feet below. But he cleared the parapet by less than an inch, his left heel actually clipping it, and he fell heavily on to the gray shingled roof of the building opposite, rolling over and hitting his shoulder on a chimney stack.
Immediately, he stood up and hobbled back to the parapet. He leaned over and took hold of Nancy’s hand. “Here! Pull yourself up! Quick!”
He heaved her up, inch by inch, and at last she was able to grip the top of the brickwork and pull herself over. “God, I thought I was going to meet my ancestors then, for sure!”
Back on the other side, the thin young man was lashing out at the dogs with his nail-studded rafter. One of them managed to dodge around his feet and jump up on to his shoulders, biting at his neck. But he swung the rafter right over his head and hit it in the back with an audible crunch. He twisted the rafter around and the dog dropped over the side of the building and into the yard below.
He climbed up on the edge of the roof, swaying. Josh shouted, “Jump! I’ll catch you!”
Nancy said, “Why, Josh? He was out to mug us!”
“He helped us escape, didn’t he? And he knows a whole lot more about this world than we do. He can help us, Nance. We can’t just leave him here!”
Nancy shook her head. But whatever she thought, it was too late, because the thin young man suddenly launched himself toward them, his arms outstretched. At the same instant, one of the dogs jumped after him, and caught his coat in its teeth.
Josh stretched out with both hands and snatched at the young man’s wrists as he stumbled against the parapet. The dog, still clinging to the hem of his coat, was thrown against the wall. It didn’t yelp, though, or open its jaws.