Page 63 of Hang on St. Christopher

I tried to pull it back onto the road.

Come on!

Turn you son of?—

Leaves.

Thorns.

Branches.

A wall.

Blackness.

Silence...

An unknown ellipsis of time.

The return of experience.

The pitter-patter of rain.

The gradual firing up of my consciousness and memory.

Dazed. Dizzy.

“Jesus,” I said.

I had no idea where I was.

Car accident.

I’ve had a car accident in Scotland.

No, not Scotland.

Ireland.

On a case.

A case again after all this time.

I climbed out of the hedge, which had grown up over an ancient stone wall. I was cut and bruised, but nothing was broken and I appeared to be in one piece.

I’d bitten my tongue, and there was blood in my mouth.

I must have been knocked unconscious for at least five or ten minutes, and if they’d wanted to, the Range Rover men could have reversed back and finished me off. But they didn’t. They just wanted to get out of here.

And get they had.

They were long gone now.

I staggered into the road.

Lights.

“Hey, hey!” I croaked, but I must have looked a right state, and the lights drove on.

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