Another roof, fifteen feet or so below him, stretched out in a gentle slope, terminating in a low wall.
There was no escape that way. He looked to his left. A higher roof seemed more inviting, and he could see a ladder that would take him up there.
Bending double he ran towards the ladder. Half-way up it, he heard running footsteps, and looking back over his shoulder he caught a glimpse of the silhouette of a policeman’s flat cap against the night sky. The policeman was going to the lower roof, and apparently hadn’t seen Baird on the ladder.
Baird swarmed up the remaining rungs of the ladder. In his haste to get under cover, he forgot to keep low, and for a second or so he was outlined against the sky as he reached the top of the ladder.
From the opposite roof came a crack of a rifle. Baird felt a violent blow against his right side a split second before he heard the shot. He staggered, went down on one knee, got up again, and swerving to right and left, ran blindly across the roof to the shelter of more chimney stacks.
The rifle cracked again, and he heard the slug whine past his head.
‘He’s up on the upper roof,’ a voice bawled from the opposite building. ‘I’ve winged him.’
Baird felt blood running down his leg, inside his trousers. Jagged wires of pain bit into his side as he moved unsteadily across the roof to the far edge. Below was a flat roof with a skylight.
He swung his legs over the edge, dropped heavily on the lower roof. He caught his breath in a gasp as the pain in his side grabbed at him.
He put his hand to his side, feeling the wet stickiness of his bleeding. He was losing a lot of blood, and he began to be worried.