Rules of the Hunt (33 page)
She took his arm companionably.
"You're a kind man," she said thoughtfully, "and a good
friend to Hugo."
Kathleen had not seen Fitzduane since the carnage at the hospital.
In view of the investigations after the incident,
she had been sent to a hospital elsewhere and released after a week.
Her physical injuries were not serious and
were now almost healed.
Then there had
been her father's funeral and her mother to look after.
And there was a sense of shock and violation
that was taking a lot longer time to overcome; it might take years.
In truth, her feelings about Fitzduane were hard to clarify.
Indirectly he was the cause of these terrible
happenings.
He was not responsible but
he was directly associated.
If she had
never met the man, her father might yet be alive and her mother would not have
had a nervous breakdown.
"How is he?" she said.
She missed him as she spoke and had an overwhelming desire to be with
him.
She felt confused.
Here was a man with a son by another woman,
whose life was associated with a level of threat that any sane person, given a
choice, would avoid like the plague.
He was also the most attractive and stimulating man she had ever met, and
she could not stay away from him.
Yet
she was scared of being with him and the emotional pain that might ensue.
And she was appalled by the latent physical
danger.
The memory of McGonigal and
Sasada was still fresh in her mind.
She
had trouble sleeping and found it difficult to concentrate.
Sometimes, for no specific reason, she felt
herself shaking with terror and sweating.
"Grumpy," said Kilmara, in an amused voice, and then he became more
serious.
"For the last couple of
years, Hugo has been focused on Boots and rebuilding Duncleeve and some work
for the Rangers — but otherwise skating.
He did not seem to be fully engaged.
It was as if he needed to rest up for a little time before embarking on
something new.
He had hung up his wars
and his cameras but hadn't found a replacement activity.
He seemed to me to lack a purpose in
life."
"Looking after a child and building a home is not a purpose?"
said Kathleen, a little annoyed.
Kilmara laughed.
"Touché!" he said.
Kathleen stopped and stared at some seaweed, kelp, the deep-brown rubbery
kind with long stalks and little bubbles on the fronds that you could
burst.
She was reminded of summers at
the seaside with her family and the reassuring feeling of her father's hand in
hers, and she was gripped with a sense of loss and desolation.
Tears welled from her eyes.
Kilmara looked across at her and saw the tears and put his arm around
her, and they walked like that for some distance before either spoke
again.
The beach seemed endless and the
headland in the distance was shrouded in mist.
Kathleen imagined that they were walking on clouds.
When she spoke again, she picked up the
conversation where they had left off.
"And his being shot," she said.
"Are you implying that this has changed
him?"
"Being shot, seriously injured, tends to concentrate the mind,"
said Kilmara grimly.
"You'll have
seen it for yourself.
Some people fold
and die and others draw on all their reserves and seem to get a renewed grip on
life, as if they realize just how little time there is and the importance of
making the most of what you've got."
"Well, Hugo is a fighter," said Kathleen forcibly.
"And there is the irony," said Kilmara.
"He claws his way back into the land of
the living, and insofar as it is humanly possible in such a condition, operates
flat out..."
He paused and laughed.
"And?" said Kathleen impatiently.
"And when something happens that he cannot remotely blame himself
for — the attack on the hospital — he gets an acute attack of depression and
just does nothing for five days," said Kilmara.
He looked at Kathleen.
"I think he misses you."
Kathleen did to reply at first.
Her cheeks were tingling from the breeze off the sea and the salt
spray.
She felt defensive about
Fitzduane and thought Kilmara was being a little cruel.
"He feels responsible," she said
slowly.
"He was the target and
others died.
That would hurt him."
"Well, he is back on track now," Kilmara said, "and
furious with himself for losing so much time.
That is why he's grumpy."
Kathleen started to laugh, and it was infectious.
Soon both of them were laughing as they
walked arm in arm along the endless curve of the sand.
*
*
*
*
*
The most unpleasant initial aftereffect of his injuries, in Fitzduane's
opinion — a judgment he felt most qualified to make, since it was his body,
after all — was the external fixation the orthopedic team had used to repair
his smashed thighbone.
Fortunately, it
had been a temporary expedient.
They had screwed four pins into the bone, two above and two below the
fracture, which protruded through the skin.
They had then joined the pins together externally with crossbars.
When Fitzduane looked at his leg, the
fixation reminded him of a scaffolding construction.
He was part bionic.
Frankly, he had preferred being all human.
The orthopedic surgeon had been proud of his handiwork.
"The advantage of external over internal
fixation is that it does not contaminate," he had said, looking at an
X
ray of Fitzduane's thigh with much the same enthusiasm
that a normal male might reserve for a
Playboy
centerfold.
"Very nice," said Fitzduane, "but it makes me look like
part of the
What's the downside?"
The surgeon had smiled reassuringly.
"Just a little discomfort," he had said.
"Nothing to be
concerned about."
"Just a little discomfort," Fitzduane had soon learned, was a
relative term.
External fixation was
extremely uncomfortable.
There were four
sites of entry in Fitzduane's leg for the pins, and despite regular dressing
they were a constant source of pain and irritation.
If he accidentally bashed the fixator, the
skin tore.
To help him sleep, a frame
was put over his leg at night.
"You are able to walk almost immediately with external
fixation," said the surgeon.
"Exercise is very important."
Fitzduane, cursed with an imagination and his mind painting a graphic
picture of shattered bone, could not at first even mentally consider walking,
but he was given little choice in the matter.
On the fourth day after he had been shot, he had begun dynamic exercises.
On the fifty day, he had been eased out of bed, propped up with a zimmer
frame — a walking support — and, to his amazement, made twenty yards.
He had felt terrified at first and then
ridiculous.
He'd still had his chest
drains in.
He was told that what he was
doing was called ‘shadow walking.’
Shadow or not, it was a start.
At the end of the first week, his chest drains had been removed.
During the second week, he had been moved
from the frame onto crutches.
By the
third week, he could do fifty yards at a stretch.
Day by day after that, his stamina improved.
Not long after the attack on the hospital, he was assessed yet again by
the surgeon.
The sight of
X
rays seemed to bring out a certain manic cheeriness in the
medic.
"You are fortunate,
Hugo," he had said, "that your assailant used a subsonic round.
The damage to your femur was serious enough,
but it could have been a lot worse.
You
leg is really in quite reasonable shape, all things considered.
Boy, did we do a good job!"
"How the fuck do I know?" said Fitzduane in a reasonably
good-humored voice.
"I don't get
shot regularly.
I have no basis of
comparison."
The surgeon was used to being addressed as some kind of
supreme being
by nursing staff and patients as he made his
rounds, but he enjoyed Fitzduane.
"
yet another, even more remote, island.
Think yourself lucky you were not just painted with iodine and left to
get on with it.
Anyway, it's back to
surgery for you.
The blood flow in your
leg is good and there is encouraging new bone in the area of the wound.
I'm going to take off your scaffolding."
Three days later, Fitzduane returned to Duncleeve.
His leg was now internally fixated.
All the external protruding metal had been
removed.
In its place he wore a brace,
both for support and to remind him to take it easy at first.
He could now walk with the aid of only one
crutch.
Soon that would be discarded,
and then the brace.
He grew fitter and stronger.
Kathleen came with him.
She was
not a physiotherapist, but she was a trained nurse and well-briefed by her
colleagues.
Further, she had a highly
motivated patient who already had learned most of what he had to do in his own
right.
He would push himself slightly
harder every day, training for an hour at a time twice, three times, and then
four times a day.
His stamina increased and his slight limp faded.
Kathleen and he became very close, intimate friends.
They ate together, talked together late into
the night, exchanged confidences, walked arm in arm outside the castle.
Yet their physical relationship did not
evolve.
Kathleen was still deeply
affected by the assault on her home and the death of her father.
Fitzduane was still recovering his health and
was adjusting t his loss of Etan.
Meanwhile there was much to be done.
Fitzduane's castle and his island were being transformed.
Relentlessly, Fitzduane, displaying the thoroughness and tactical professionalism
of so many of his ancestors, was preparing to strike back.
*
*
*
*
*
The telephone rang.
Fitzduane
picked up the handset gingerly; Boots liked playing with phones, and it was
covered with his porridge and honey.
Still, it was a reminder that he was home again in Duncleeve.
"You sound distant," said de Guevain.
He was back in
Since he largely owned his private bank he was something of his own
master, and he had an excellent Director-General, but even so he felt inclined
to show the flag now and then.
Fitzduane was holding the instrument far enough away to avoid
contact.
There was raspberry jam on the
damn thing as well.
Boots had been
hungry that morning.
There were toast
crumbs everywhere.
He hunted around for
tissues while he spoke.
"I am distant," he said.
"You're in
I'm in
He found the tissues, wiped the phone as best he could, and moved the
receiver closer to him.
"How are
things on your end?"
"The
family are
fine," said de
Guevain, "and the bank is making money.
Situation normal.
I lead a predictable life.
And I have heard from our foreign
friends."
"This is an open line," reminded Fitzduane gently.
"I know,
mon ami
,"
said de Guevain.
"All I want to say
is that now I have ever reason to believe that you can rely on the builder we
talked about.
He is not associated with
the competition.
My friends are sure of
it, and I am sure of them."
de Guevain's
‘friends’ could be traced back to
his college, his regiment, and his banking connections.
The foreign and intelligence services would
feature.
Apart from his aristocratic
background, Christian was an
enarques
,
which meant that he had gone to one of the small group of colleges from which
the key rulers of
It was an intellectual
club with excellent sources.
It was the
final check.
Yoshokawa-
san
could be trusted.