The woman at the window heard him and looked quickly in his direction.
‘Don’t move,’ she said, her voice coming across the intervening space in a frightened whisper.
‘They’re down there: hundreds of them.’
Baird got one foot to the floor. The bed on which he was lying creaked under his weight. He raised himself on his elbow. Pain rode through him, bringing him out in a cold sweat. He struggled against it, but it proved too much for him, and he dropped back on to the pillow, his mind seething with vicious, frustrated rage.
He was bad all right, he thought. He remembered the last time he had been shot. It had been nothing to this. This time he was cooked. He must have bled like a pig. The great strength he had always relied on to see him through in a jam had deserted him: he couldn’t have pul ed the wings off a fly.
More cars squealed to a standstill; sirens died down, car doors opened and slammed. A murmur of voices came up from the street.
‘What’s going on?’ he asked. His voice was so weak he didn’t recognise it. It was almost as if some other person had spoken.
‘They’re searching the houses,’ she said, not moving from the window. ‘They are split ing into groups of five, and each group is taking a house.’
Baird snarled into the darkness.
‘Where’s my gun? Where’ve you put it?’