He scooped up his knife, a little awkwardly because of the cramp in his hands, and cut Olga loose. She almost fell against him, and he had to hold her up for a moment. Until her clinging grew up from the weakness of reaction into something else.
Then he steadied her on her feet and left her standing while he went back to put on his shoes and socks. The return of circulation was filling his hands with pins and needles; but gradually, with the relentless exertion, his fingers began to feel less like swollen frozen sausages.
"There is a way out of here without going through the house," she was saying breathlessly. "We can slip out without them ever knowing that we've gone."
"Slip out?" He glanced up at her. "Darling, that would be a hell of an anticlimax. I'm going upstairs now and get Matson's notes and Vaschetti's diary away from dear old Joe!"
"But how can you?" she cried. "He'll shoot you like a dog. They took your gun. I saw them. We can call the police—"
Simon straightened up, and looked down in silent reckless laughter at her desperate imploring face.
"I've got my knife," he said; "but I haven't got any guarantee that the police would get here in time. And meanwhile Maris and Co might find out that we'd got away, and decide to take the brakes off themselves. We don't want to risk that now. And besides, we've got to deliver you as a certified heroine. Remember?" Her soft scarlet lips were only a few inches away, turned up to him below the liquid pools of her eyes; and once again he was aware of their distracting provocation. He said: "Thanks just the same for being so concerned about me. It ought to be worth at least…"
Then she was in his arms, her breath warm against his cheek, and all of her asking for him; and then he was bruising her moist mouth with his own, and it would never be like that again, but there was no time for that now and perhaps there never had been. It was like so many things in his life: they were always too late, and there was never any time.
He disengaged himself very gently.
"Now," he said, "we will have the last word with Joe."