So when Frisky and Tabby threw open the door and switched on the blue overhead storm light, and Frisky the left-hander made for Jonathan's right side, leaving his left arm free for emergencies, and Tabby knelt to the left of Jonathan's head ― fussing with his keys as usual, never having the right one ready in advance ― everything was exactly the way the close observer had predicted, except that he had not expected them to be quite so frank about the purpose of their visit.
"We're all very, very fed up with you, I'm afraid, Tommy. The Chief particularly," said Tabby. "Which is why you're going on a journey. Sorry about this, Tommy. You had your chance, but you would be stubborn."
Which said, Tabby dealt Jonathan a half-hearted side-kick in the stomach, in case he was thinking of being a bother.
But Jonathan was long past the bothersome stage, as they could see. In fact there was an awkward moment when Frisky and Tabby seemed to wonder whether the bother was over for good, because when they saw him slumped forward with his head slewed sideways and his mouth open, Frisky dropped to his knees and yanked up Jonathan's eyelid with his thumb and peered into his eye.
"Tommy? Come on. Can't have you missing your own funeral, can we?"
Then they did a wonderful thing. They let him lie there. They unchained him and they ungagged him, and while Frisky sponged his face down and put a fresh plaster across his mouth but no bung, Tabby pulled off what was left of his shirt and got him into a fresh one, arm by arm.
But if Jonathan was playing floppy as a rag doll, already his secret store of energy was emptying itself into every part of his body. His muscles, bruised and half-paralysed by cramp, were screaming out to him for the relief of action. His smashed hands and crumpled legs were glowing, his blurred vision was clearing even while Frisky mopped his eyes.
He waited. He remembered the advantage of that extra moment of delay.
Lull them, he thought, as they hauled him to his feet.
Lull them, he thought again, as he slung an arm round each of their shoulders for support and let his weight hang on them as they dragged him down the corridor.
Lull them, he thought, as Frisky went crookedly ahead of him up the spiral staircase and Tabby propped him up from below.
Oh, God, he thought, as he saw stars stretched across black sky, and a great red moon floating on the water. Oh, God, give me this last moment.
They stood on the deck, the three of them, like a family group, and Jonathan could hear Roper's thirties music echoing through the early darkness from the taverna at the stern, and the jolly sounds of chatter as the evening revelries began. The forward end of the boat was unlit, and Jonathan wondered whether they intended to shoot him: one shot at the height of the music, who would hear?
The boat had changed course. A stretch of shore lay only a couple of miles off. There was a road. He could see the row of streetlights below the stars, more like mainland than island. Or perhaps a row of islands, who could tell? Sophie, let's do this together. Time to say a fond goodbye to the worst man in the world.
His guards had come to a halt, waiting for something. Slumped between them, an arm still clutched round each of their shoulders, Jonathan waited too, pleased to notice that his mouth had started bleeding again inside the plaster, which would have the double effect of loosening it and making him look even more smashed up than he was.
Then he saw Roper. He'd probably been there all the time, and Jonathan hadn't spotted him in his white dinner jacket against the white of the bridge. Corkoran was there too, but Sandy Langbourne hadn't made it. Probably screwing one of the maids.
And between Corkoran and Roper he could see Jed, or if he couldn't, God had put her there. But yes, he could see Jed, and she could see him, she saw nothing except him, but Roper must have told her to keep quiet. She was wearing plain jeans and no jewellery, which pleased him unnaturally: he really hated the way Roper hung his money on her. She was looking at him and he was returning her look, but what with his face in the mess it was, she couldn't know that. Probably, with all the extra moaning and sagging he was doing, she wasn't feeling very romantic.
Jonathan slumped still lower in the arms of his guards, and they obligingly stooped and grasped him more firmly round the waist.
"I think he's going," Frisky murmured.
"Where to?" Tabby said.
And that was the cue for Jonathan to drive their two heads together with more force than he had ever commanded in his life. The power began in his leap as he seemed to rise in flight from the hole where they had chained him. It swarmed through his shoulders as he flung wide his arms, then closed them in one huge and terrible handclap, then a second: temple against temple, face against face, ear against ear, skull against skull. It ran through his body as he thrust the two men away from him, then hurled them onto the deck and with the side of his right foot kicked each head in turn, one scything blow for each, then a second to the throat. Then he stepped forward, stripping the plaster from his face as he advanced on Roper, who was giving him orders, the way he had at Meister's.
"Pine. Shouldn't have done that. Don't come any nearer. Corks, show him your gun. Putting you ashore. Both of you. Done your job and failed. Total waste of time, whole stupid game."
Jonathan had found a length of ship's railing and was clutching it with both hands. But he was only resting. He wasn't weakening. He was giving his secret reinforcements time to group.
"Stuff's all delivered, Pine. Tossed 'em a boat or two, couple of arrests ― what the hell? You don't think I do this kind of thing alone, do you?" Then he repeated what he had told Jed. "This isn't crime. This is politics. No good being high-and-mighty. Way of the world."
Jonathan had started toward him again, though his steps were wide and faltering. Corkoran cocked his gun.
"You can go home, Pine. No, you can't. London's pulled the rug from under. There's a warrant out for you in England too. Shoot him, Corks. Do it now. Head shot."
"Jonathan, stop!"
Was it Jed or Sophie calling him? Plain walking was no longer easy for him. He wished he could get back to the handrail, but he had reached the centre of the deck. He was wading. The deck was swaying. His knees were failing. Yet the will in him would not let go. He was determined to grapple with the unreachable, put blood on Roper's beautiful white dinner jacket, smash his dolphin smile, make him scream I kill, I do wrong, there is good and bad and I am bad!
Roper was counting, the way Corkoran had liked to count.
Either he was counting awfully slowly or Jonathan's sense of time was failing. He heard one and he heard two, but he didn't hear three, and he wondered whether this was another way of dying: they shoot you, but you go on with your life exactly as before; it's just that no one knows you're there. Then he heard Jed's voice, and it had the authoritarian ring that had always particularly annoyed him:
"Jonathan, for Christ's sake, look!"
Roper's voice came back, like a faraway radio station picked up by chance. "Yes, look," he agreed. "Look here, Pine. Look what I've got. I'm doing a Daniel on her, Pine. But this time it isn't a game."
He managed to look, though things were getting hazy for him. And he saw that Roper, like a good commanding officer, had taken one step forward of his adjutant and was standing pretty much at attention in his smart white jacket, except that with one hand he was holding Jed by her chestnut hair and with the other he was holding Corkoran's pistol to her temple ― typical of old Corky to sport an honest-to-God army-issue nine-millimetre Browning. Then Jonathan lay down, or fell down, and this time he heard Sophie and Jed in chorus, yelling at him to stay awake.