Now what?
My left forearm hurt.
I had been gradually easing it out of its false case for some time and the seal around the elbow had finally separated as I had cautiously flexed it back and forth without his noticing. Now I looked at the end of my stump. It was sore and bleeding, such had been the force of the blow.
The task now was to get out of the bathroom before Peter came round and finished off what he’d started.
I tugged at the handcuffs on my right hand. I twisted and pulled, I jerked and heaved but made no impression whatsoever on the metal, I simply tore and chaffed my wrist until I was bleeding on both sides.
I trod on my arm battery that was lying on the floor. How do I pick that up, I wondered? I kicked off my shoes and used my left big toe to pull the sock off my right foot. I tried to pick up the battery in my toes but it was too big to grasp.
Peter groaned again. I was getting desperate now. I bloody refused to be still attached to this bloody towel rail when he came round.
I went down on my knees and tried to get my mouth down to the battery but it was too far. I used my toes to pull the battery a little closer and, between my right foot and left stump, I managed to upend it so that it sat vertically on the floor. I hung down with most of my weight on my sore handcuffed right wrist, but I didn’t care. I stretched my body down and forward as far as I could reach and put my mouth over the end of the battery.
I could feel a tingling on my tongue as it touched the battery electrodes. I had freshly charged it the previous night.
Peter groaned again and this time more loudly. I looked at him in alarm. He was being sick. I could see the vomit as it came down his nose and out of the corner of his mouth. I hoped he’d choke on it.
I knelt on the floor again and tried to use my mouth to push the battery into its holder in the fibreglass shell that stuck out rigidly sideways from the mechanical hand that was firmly gripping the towel rail. It was simple really. Place the lower end of the battery under the lugs at the wrist end of the holder and snap the upper end in under the sprung plastic clip. A task I performed day in, day out, hundreds of times a year. But always with my dextrous right hand. It was not so easy with a tingling mouth and when my life depended on it. Eventually I positioned the battery at the correct angle under the lugs and used my nose and forehead to push the other end in. It snapped into place. Hallelujah!
Now I had to get my bruised and bloody stump back into the fibreglass shell before it swelled up too much to fit. I stood up and eased it in. Normally I used talcum powder to help as the fit was tight even at the best of times, and a little moisture can cause the real me to stick to the plastic, making things impossible. This time I had no available talcum powder and there was masses of moisture, both blood and sweat.
I managed it after a fashion although the elbow seal was far from perfect. I sent the impulses but the thumb refused to budge. Bugger. Maybe there was blood between my skin and the electrodes. I tried again and then again.
The thumb moved a fraction but still refused to swing open fully.
I kept sending the necessary signals and slowly, little by little, the thumb moved enough to allow my hand to unclasp the towel rail.
But I was still firmly attached on my right-hand side.
My normally strong mechanical left hand was letting me down. The hand that this morning could have crushed not only eggs and fingers, but also apples and tennis balls, would have had trouble now with a soap bubble. Nevertheless, I used it to attack the handcuffs. But I had no success. I wished I had a cutting tool on the hand like that character in the James Bond movie. I would have cut myself out of trouble in no time.
Peter coughed. Perhaps he was indeed choking on his vomit.
I wondered if I should shout for help. But wouldn’t it rouse Peter? And would anyone else hear me anyway? My building was predominantly occupied by businessmen. Would anyone be in their flats to hear me at one thirty on a Tuesday afternoon? The porters/security were safely behind their desk, four floors down. They may as well have been on the moon.
I looked closely at the handcuffs. The cuff around my wrist was annoyingly tight. Too tight for me to slip my hand through, I’d tried that. The other cuff around the rail bracket was not so tight. I put the thumb of my false hand through the ring and tried to use the arm as a lever to break the lock.
I couldn’t move it far enough so I eased my forearm once more out of the shell and used my left elbow to push the prosthetic arm down. I am sure that the boffins at the Roehampton artificial limb centre would have loved to know that I was using their highly expensive pride and joy as a crowbar.
But it worked. The thumb on the hand was stronger than the lock that resisted for a while but finally gave way with a crack. My false arm fell to the floor but it had done its job. I was free from the towel rail although I still had the handcuffs dangling around my right wrist.
I wasted no time. I leaned over Peter in the bath and took his gun. I held it in my right hand and pointed it at him. Should I shoot him? I asked myself. Indeed, could I shoot him? I had never been one to shy away from a bit of violence if it were necessary, but shooting someone seemed a bit extreme, even terminal. Especially someone who was unconscious.
I wasn’t sure that I could bring myself to shoot Peter even if he woke up. Perhaps I would threaten to do so but then not have the resolve to carry it out. If I wasn’t going to use the gun, then no one else was either. I removed the bullets from the cylinder and put them in my pocket.
I left Peter where he was and went into the sitting room to call for reinforcements from the police. I put the gun down on the table and dialled 999.
‘Emergency, what service?’ asked a female voice.
‘Police,’ I said.
I could hear the voice give my telephone number to the police operator who then came on the line.
‘Police emergency,’ he said.
‘I need help and fast,’ I said. ‘I have a gunman in my flat.’
He asked for the address. I gave it. He asked if I was in danger. Yes, I said, I was.
They were on their way.
‘Tell Superintendent Aldridge that the gunman is Peter Enstone.’
‘Right,’ said the police operator, but I wondered if he would.
I walked into the hallway and used the internal telephone to call down to the reception desk.
‘Yes, Mr Halley?’ said a voice. It wasn’t Derek. It was one of the new staff.
‘Some policemen will be arriving soon. Please send them straight up.’
‘Certainly, sir,’ he said somewhat uncertainly. ‘Is everything all right?’
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Everything’s fine.’
I went back to check on my unwanted guest in the bathroom, but the bath was empty.
Oh my God! Everything was far from fine.
I should have shot him while I’d had the chance.
I spun round but he wasn’t behind me.
Now what should I do? Should I go and get the gun? Should I reload it?
And where was he? There weren’t many places to hide in this flat. I went back to the kitchen door, picked up the internal telephone to push the buzzer to summon help from Security downstairs.
I never got the chance.
Peter came charging out of one of the bedrooms straight at me. His lips were drawn back, revealing his teeth in some evil grin, and there was murder in his eyes. This wasn’t to be the cold-blooded, almost sanitized killing he had planned, this was going to be uncontrolled and furious. He was in a frenzy and a rage. That made two of us.
He dived at me as I tried to side-step into the kitchen and he used my own false arm as a club to aim a swing at my head.