‘What do I need to do?’
‘There’s nothing you can do. Maybe if you hadn’t made the show with the bottle I would have told you not to drink the wine. But we’ll never know, will we?’
‘There has to be something.’ Not desperate. Determined.
‘I have no antidote. I didn’t poison you only to save you.’
‘Help me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because then I’ll owe you.’
‘The debt of a corpse is of no use to me.’
‘But if I live.’
‘You won’t. That’s the point.’
She shook her head. ‘There’s always a way. There’s always something. You poisoned me. So you know everything about the drug. You know how to stop it or slow it down.’
He did. He never used a weapon unless he understood how it worked.
‘Why?’ he asked again.
‘Because you’re a loner, and you know you’re a harder target that way, it also makes you vulnerable. One day you’ll need someone to back you up. There’s no one better to do that than me. Who else has proved themselves like that? You don’t trust anyone, but you know, when it comes to it, you can rely on me like you can rely on yourself. You’ll never have that again.’
She spoke like a sales person making a compelling pitch, demonstrating to the client why they needed the product or service. But she needed to sell it more than anyone working on commission because she was trying to stay alive.
‘Well?’ she said, unable to stand Victor’s silence any longer.
‘I’m thinking about it.’
‘Think faster, please.’
‘How do I know you’ll keep your word? You could be lying.’
Her eyes lit up, because she knew she had got to him. She had hooked the client, now she needed to reel him in, to reassure, to get rid of the buyer’s guilt before it impeded a sale.
‘You don’t,’ she said. ‘But we have the same principles. If our roles were reversed right now, would you be lying or would you honour your word?’
He said nothing, because it was a rhetorical question. They both knew the answer.
‘Eat,’ he said. ‘Eat as much as you can as fast as you can. Anything sweet. The more sugar the better. Drink as much soda as you can stomach. You need to spike your blood sugar. Insulin will slow the effects of the neurotoxin. Then get yourself to a hospital. You might buy yourself enough time to make it before the paralysis kicks in. If you haven’t got there by then, you’re done. After paralysis comes heart failure. At the hospital, you’re going to die. There is no antidote for the toxin. Your heart will stop. There is nothing you can do to prevent that. But if you’re strong enough, they’ll bring you back.’
‘I’m strong enough,’ she said, heading for the kitchen.
He opened the door to leave her to her fate, one way or the other.
Also by Tom Wood
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