Arthur had not planned to come to the company.
He had planned to rest. That was what Cedric had said, repeatedly and with the specific emphasis of someone who meant it.
'Rest, don't use the arm, don't go anywhere, let the wound close properly.' And Arthur had nodded after he'd already decided not to do, and then this morning he had woken up, looked at the ceiling of his hospital room, thought about Noel, and gotten dressed.
He had been shot.
In his own office.
By a masked killer.
And Noel had not come to see him.
Not once. Not a note, not a message through Bennett or Cedric, nothing. Arthur had been lying in a hospital bed for more than three days and the one person he had been watching the door for had not appeared.
He was not going to say that out loud. He was never going to say that out loud. But he had gotten dressed, put his coat on carefully around the sling, and come to the company.
