Red, White and Blue (Book Two of The Powder Trail)

Chapter Twenty Seven: The Biting Kind

Vision was the last of Sam's senses to return, so he tried to work out where he was using the pain. 

It felt as though he was lying on a ladder, because hard slats were pushing into his back at regular intervals. But he wasn't lying absolutely flat, and the slats underneath him seemed stable, so that probably meant a flight of steps? 

He was outside. He could taste the moisture in the air – and also something else, something thick and metallic.

He looked up, feeling his tendons twang like metal cables. A tall stone structure swam into view above him – a sort of cross with lots of gothic tracery, and statues of bearded old men standing reverently in their niches.

This was the Martyr's Memorial, wasn't it? So bloodless and dignified when you thought about the horrible deaths those men had suffered.

There were never any stars in Oxford, and the gas-lamps were just one heavy blur, but something bright was spangling his uniform. He tried to brush these spangles off, but only succeeded in making his hands wet. And he had to bring his fingertips quite close to his eyes before he realized that they were wet with blood. He'd been brushing glass off his suit? Why would there be glass on his suit? Had he landed on broken bottles?

No, no – a window – he'd fallen through a window! He looked up, and found a jagged frame on the first floor of the college opposite. There was a figure silhouetted in it. It was, he gradually realized, the figure who'd been responsible for pushing him out of the window in the first place.

He got up. There were a few protests from his muscles, but they obeyed him. 

Unthinkingly, he brushed the glass spangles again, cutting his finger open in the process. It was the index finger of his right hand, and it dyed the pages of his notebook when he started to scribble in it. After a while, he couldn't get his pencil to write on the soggy paper. 

Wait, there was something wrong with that, wasn't there? Not just the sickly sight of the blood – not just the consequences of losing it – but the thought of what all that blood might mean to the figure standing in the window, watching.

And then it came back to him. In fact, it must have come back to his hands before it came back to his head, because he could dimly see that what he had tried to scribble on the soggy pages of his notebook was 'Professor Burgess – the biting kind'.

He fixed his eyes on the figure silhouetted in the window and raised his voice. "I'm arresting you for criminal damage and assault upon a police officer," he said thickly, swaying on the spot. "Also, on suspicion of murder."

It suddenly dawned on Sam that he was not the only one watching the figure in the window. It was dark, but the streets were still crowded. Carts had paused on St. Giles's, and faces were peering over the railings of the churchyard behind him.

The figure silhouetted in the window jumped down, and landed quite gracefully in the broken glass, for all that he looked decrepit at first sight. He must have been at least seventy – quite a small man, with a bent back and eyebrows that seemed to grope out at you like the antennae of an inquisitive insect.

"Sixty five years," he said, with a sprightly sarcasm that reminded Sam very much of Dr Petrescu. "I've been at this University – working for the city's health – for sixty-five years, and I'm now to be arrested by an illiterate policeman who I probably helped deliver?"

"I am not illiterate, sir," said Sam, holding up the blood-stained notebook in case he wanted proof. "In fact, I studied at Brasenose."

Professor Burgess seemed interested, in spite of himself. "Indeed? And what did you study?"

"English literature." Sam half-whispered it, but the Professor heard him. Obviously, 'the biting kind' had quite acute hearing.

He turned his eyes heavenward – although those overhanging eyebrows must have been screening heaven from his view – and said, "Good god, English literature? After sixty-five years of saving lives, I am to be judged by an arts student?"

Sam frowned with stolid puzzlement – the policeman's best friend. "No, sir. The judge will be judging you." He swayed for a few moments, and then added, "In fairness, his background will probably be in legal matters, but there may well be a scientist on the jury."

The Professor was getting angry – but not, Sam suspected, at him.

"You think it would actually go to trial, do you? You impertinent little--"

But he stopped and looked around him. It was probably dawning on him that it wouldn't have gone to trial, if half the city hadn't just seen him push a policeman out of a first-floor window.

"I'm going to have to ask you to accompany me to the station, sir," said Sam. "You are not obliged to say anything, but anything you do say may be taken down and used as evidence against you."

The blood-loss was starting to slur his speech. Sam wondered how many minutes of consciousness he had left. Burgess – who was, after all, better qualified to know – had obviously been wondering the same thing, and decided there were too many.

He planted one foot on the bottom-step of the memorial, and threw a punch at Sam. Despite the fact that he was over seventy and half Sam's size, the biting kind were strong. His fist hit Sam so hard that he was slammed against the base of the martyrs' cross, and landed in a heap on the steps, still clutching his notebook.

Mechanically, he got up again. 

"I'm going to have to record that you resisted arrest," he said, trying to grab Burgess's fist before it connected with his chin again. He was half-way successful, because he managed to wrench the arm out of its intended trajectory, but the effort still pushed him over, and he landed on his back once more. The stone steps found their old grooves in his spine.

What was it Jack had said? Stay on top of him – make him carry your weight. But Sam's weight seemed to be nothing to the old man, and he proved it by grabbing the collar of his uniform and lifting him bodily to his feet.

Sam felt those overgrown eyebrows flutter against his face as the Professor examined him. "If you arrest me, I won't be on the wards to save your life. And you are going to need an extremely good surgeon."

And then he lurched forward, uncoiling those ancient sinews like a snake. Sam remembered being knocked backwards, feeling sick and hot, but his fevered imagination supplied the rest. For a few seconds, while he clung onto consciousness by a thread, he seemed to see two rows of teeth sinking into his neck, and meeting in the middle. 

Then the gas-lights overhead started to blur and stretch, until his world was filled with one all-enveloping shade of white.

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