He stopped trying to mend the wheel to free his chair and stared at the oncoming ghoul. Danny moved in again, ramming from behind. The man went down, and Danny leaned over him, delivering blow after blow to the man’s head and shoulders. He didn’t even raise his arms to protect himself, just got to his feet again. Grabbing for the back of his jacket, Danny yanked him backwards, and Xavier saw the glint of Danny’s ring flashing in the light as his friend went for the genitals.

Xavier saw the blade before Danny. There was no drama to it. The movement of the knife through the air lasted only half a second, from drawing it out of his pocket to depositing it in Danny’s chest. There was no sound at all. Danny’s head fell to his chest, eyes still open, looking in his final seconds at the weapon that had felled him where gunfire, bombs and a terror network had failed. His hand dropped from its crushing grip on the man’s balls, which should have been enough to deter even the most determined attacker.

When Danny tumbled from his chair, Xavier’s surrender was complete. There were some forces you couldn’t withstand. Danny was a born warrior, had never given in for a second of his glorious trail-blazing life. Xavier wasn’t the same. Somehow, letting fate take its course seemed a less terrifying prospect than engaging in conflict.

Danny was dead before he hit the ground. It was no place to die, the back of a sports centre on a bed of asphalt and a pillow of cigarette butts. Not fit for the hero his friend had been, his legs gone in an explosion, his passion for life only enhanced by having so nearly perished.

In the few steps it took the man to reach him, Xavier mourned. Death hadn’t wanted Danny that night. The appearance of the knife had been a cursory means of dispatching a nuisance, no more. He wished his friend had stayed in the bar for one more pint before exiting and attempting the rescue. He wished he’d skipped basketball that night rather than persuade himself that the exercise and company would be good for him in spite of his tiredness. He wished he could cheat death for one more day, write letters to the people he loved, and put his affairs in order.

Then the black bag was in front of his face – no surprise this time. Xavier bowed his head and allowed it to be slipped on. He neither wanted to see what was coming, nor what he was leaving behind. A car boot opened. He was lifted out of his chair and deposited, quite gently, into the space. Then the rumble of an engine, the rolling movement of the vehicle, and the end of a life he had not loved a fraction as well as he should have. Xavier mourned.

Chapter Twenty-Two