Page 142 of Babel

Letty stood in the frame. She held a revolver.

‘Letty?’ Victoire asked in disbelief. ‘Letty, what are you doing?’

Robin felt a very brief, naive swell of relief before it became very clear Letty was not here to rescue them. She lifted the revolver, aimed at each one of them in turn. She seemed quite practised with the gun. Her arm did not tremble beneath its weight. And the sight was so absurd – their Letty, their prim English rose, wielding a weapon with such calm, deadly precision – that he wondered for a moment if he was hallucinating.

But then he remembered: Letty was an admiral’s daughter. Of course she knew how to shoot.

‘Put your hands above your heads,’ she said. Her voice was high and clear, like polished crystal. She sounded like an utter stranger. ‘They won’t hurt anyone, as long as you come quietly. If you don’t resist. They’ve killed the rest, but they’ll take you alive. Unhurt.’

Victoire eyed the envelope on the table, and then the crackling fireplace.

Letty followed her gaze. ‘I wouldn’t do that.’

Victoire and Letty stood glaring at each other, breathing hard, just for a moment.

Several things happened at once. Victoire lunged for the envelope. Letty whipped the gun around. By instinct, Robin rushed towards her – he didn’t know what he intended, only that he was sure Letty would hurt Victoire – but just as he approached her, Ramy shoved him to the side. He fell forward, tripping against a table leg—

And then Letty broke the world.

A click; a bang.

Ramy collapsed. Victoire screamed.

‘No—’ Robin dropped to his knees. Ramy was limp, unmoving; he struggled to turn him over onto his back. ‘No, Ramy, please—’ For a moment he thought Ramy was pretending, for how was this possible? He’d been upright, moving and alive, just a second ago. The world could not end so abruptly; death could not be so swift. Robin patted Ramy’s cheek, his neck, anything he could to provoke a reaction, but it was no use, his eyes would not open – why wouldn’t they open? Surely this was a joke; he couldn’t see any blood – but then he spotted it, a tiny red dot over Ramy’s heart that rapidly blossomed outwards until it soaked through his shirt, his coat, through everything.

Victoire stepped back from the fireplace. The papers crackled inside the flames, blackening to ash. Letty made no move to retrieve them. She stood stunned, eyes wide, the revolver hanging limply at her side.

No one moved. They were all staring at Ramy, who was undeniably, irreversibly still.

‘I didn’t...’ Letty touched her fingers to her mouth. She’d lost her cool. Now her voice was very shrill and high, like a little girl’s. ‘Oh, my God...’

‘Oh, Letty.’ Victoire moaned softly. ‘What have you done?’

Robin lowered Ramy to the floor and stood.

One day Robin would ask himself how his shock had turned so easily to rage; why his first reaction was not disbelief at this betrayal but black, consuming hatred. And the answer would elude and disturb him, for it tiptoed around a complicated tangle of love and jealousy that ensnared them all, for which they had no name or explanation, a truth they’d only been starting to wake up to and now, after this, would never acknowledge.

But just then, all he knew was red blurring out the edges of his vision, crowding out everything but Letty. He knew now how it felt to truly want a person dead, to want to tear them apart limb by limb, to hear them scream, to make them hurt. He understood now how murder felt, how rage felt, for this was it, the intent to kill he ought to have felt when he killed his father.

He lunged at her.

‘Don’t,’ Victoire cried. ‘She’s—’

Letty turned and fled. Robin rushed after her just as she retreated behind a mass of constables. He pushed against them; he didn’t care about the danger, the truncheons and guns; he only wanted to get through to her, wanted to wring the life from her neck, to tear the white bitch to pieces.

Strong arms wrenched him back. He felt a blunt force against the small of his back. He stumbled. He heard Victoire screaming but couldn’t see her past the tangle of constables. Someone threw a cloth bag over his head. He flailed violently; his arm struck something solid, and the pressure against his back let up so slightly, but then something hard connected against his cheekbone, and the explosion of pain was so blinding it made him go limp. Someone cuffed his hands behind his back. Two sets of hands gripped his arms, hoisted him up, and dragged him out of the Reading Room.

The struggle was over. The Old Library was quiet. He shook his head frantically, trying to shake the bag off, but all he caught were glimpses of overturned shelves and blackened carpet before someone yanked the bag tighter over his head. He saw nothing of Vimal, Anthony, Ilse, or Cathy. He could no longer hear Victoire’s screaming.

‘Victoire?’ he gasped, terrified. ‘Victoire?’

‘Quiet,’ said a deep voice.

‘Victoire!’ he shouted. ‘Where—’

‘Quiet, you.’ Someone pulled the hood away just long enough to stuff a rag in his mouth. Then he was plunged back into darkness. He saw nothing, heard nothing; just bleak, awful silence as they pulled him out of the ruins of the Old Library and into a waiting cab.