“Damn right you won’t,” said Charlie.
He bolted away down the ward, his escape egged on by patients to the right and left of him. “Go, boy, go,” somebody yelled. The nurse gave belated chase but at the door an instant accomplice intervened, literally throwing himself in her way. Charlie was out of sight and lost in the corridors before she was up and after him again.
It was an easy place to lose yourself in, he soon realized. The hospital had been built in the late nineteenth century, then added to as funds and donations allowed: a wing in 1911, another after the First World War, more wards in the fifties, and the Chaney Memorial Wing in 1973. The place was a labyrinth. They’d take an age to find him.
The problem was, he didn’t feel so good. The stump of his left arm had begun to ache as his painkillers wore off, and he had the distinct impression that it was bleeding under the bandages. In addition, the quarter hypo of sedative had slowed his system down. He felt slightly stupid, and he was certain that his condition must show on his face. But he was not going to allow himself to be coaxed back into that bed, back into sleep, until he’d sat down in a quiet place somewhere and thought the whole thing through.
He found refuge in a tiny room off one of the corridors. Lined with filing cabinets and piles of reports, it smelled slightly damp. He’d found his way into the Memorial Wing, though he didn’t know it. The seven-story monolith had been built with a bequest from millionaire Frank Chaney, and the tycoon’s own building firm had done the construction job, as the old man’s will required. They had used substandard materials and a defunct drainage system, which was why Chaney had died a millionaire, and the wing was crumbling from the basement up. Sliding himself into a clammy niche between two of the cabinets, well out of sight should somebody chance to come in, Charlie crouched on the floor and interrogated his right hand.
“Well?” he demanded in a reasonable tone. “Explain yourself.”
It played dumb.
“No use,” he said. “I’m on to you.
Still, it just sat there at the end of his arm, innocent as a babe.
“You tried to kill me . .” he accused it.
Now the hand opened a little, without his instruction, and gave him the once over.
“You could try if again, couldn’t you?”
Ominously, it began to flex its fingers, like a pianist preparing for a particularly difficult solo. Yes, it said, I could; any old time.
“In fact, there’s very little I can do to stop you, is there?” Charlie said. “Sooner or later you’ll catch me unawares. Can’t have somebody watching over me for the rest of my life. So where does that leave me, I ask myself? As good as dead, wouldn’t you say?”
The hand closed down a little, the puffy flesh of its palm crinkling into grooves of pleasure. Yes, it was saying, you’re done for, poor fool, and there’s not a thing you can do.
“You killed Ellen.”
I did, the hand smiled.
“You severed my other hand, so it could escape. Am I right?”
You are, said the hand.
“I saw it, you know,” Charlie said. “I saw it running off. And now you want to do the same thing, am I correct? You want to be up and away.”
Correct.
“You’re not going to give me any peace, are you, till you’ve got your freedom?”
Right again.
“So,” said Charlie, “I think we understand each other, and I’m willing to do a deal with you.”
The hand came closer to his face, crawling up his pajama shirt, conspiratorial.
“I’ll release you,” he said.
It was on his neck now, its grip not tight, but cozy enough to make him nervous.
“I’ll find a way, I promise. A guillotine, a scalpel, I don’t know what.”
It was rubbing itself on him like a cat now, stroking him. “But you have to do it my way, in my time. Because if you kill me you’ll have no chance of survival, will you? They’ll just bury you with me, the way they buried Dad’s hands.”