‘Just relax, Stephen,’ Helen said. ‘Give it another go.’
‘No… ’
Helen watched Akhtar take two steps forward, the gun held out in front of him, and something cold fluttered in her chest. From the corner of her eye she caught the look on Mitchell’s face, but even as she saw what was coming, it was too late to do anything about it.
Akhtar let his eyes drop to where the key had fallen, just for a moment, but long enough for Mitchell to launch himself forward, stretch out his arm and get a hand on the gun.
Helen screamed Mitchell’s name.
Mitchell pulled hard at the gun, dragging Akhtar towards him and on to his knees. The newsagent gasped in panic. He shook his head. Then they were both shouting, ‘No, please,’ and ‘Give it to me,’ and the metal handcuff clattered against the radiator pipe as Mitchell fought to wrench the gun from Akhtar’s hand.
Helen leaned across and clawed at Mitchell’s arm.
She opened her mouth to say his name again, then the explosion forced her back hard against the radiator and down on to her side.
She kept her eyes closed while the gunshot’s report sang in her ears.
TWENTY-THREE
Every officer in the hall was silent, frozen at their station. Donnelly was on his feet. ‘Was that what I think it was?’
He and Pascoe stared at the monitors. They watched as firearms officers who had been leaning casually against their vehicles scrambled to take up combat stances and trained their weapons on the shop. They turned to see Chivers pick up his helmet and his Heckler and Koch carbine and rush from the hall to join his team, then turned back to the monitors to see him appear on screen twenty seconds later and take up a position himself.
‘Oh, Jesus,’ Pascoe said.
Donnelly studied the monitor for half a minute. There was no further movement. He pointed to the phone in Pascoe’s hand.
Said, ‘Call.’
The number had been programmed into speed dial. Pascoe hit the button and waited. The click of connection popped from the speakers and, a few seconds later, the ringing of Helen Weeks’ phone began to echo, tinny and grating, around the hall.
The call went to voicemail.
Hi, this is Helen. Up to my eyes in something or other, so please-
‘Again,’ Donnelly said.
Pascoe ended the call and hit redial. The phone rang three times, then was answered.
‘Helen?’
There was a long pause before Helen Weeks said, ‘Yeah.’
‘It’s Sue Pascoe.’ Pascoe waited. ‘Helen?’
‘Yes… I’m here.’
‘Is everything OK in there? We heard what sounded like a gunshot.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Was it a gunshot, Helen?’
‘It was a stupid accident-’
‘Are you all right?’ Pascoe asked. ‘Is Mr Mitchell all right?’
‘We’re both fine. It was just… an accident, that’s all, so no need to panic.’
Pascoe felt the tension in her shoulders, in the room, lift a little. She watched Donnelly let out a breath as he leaned against the table. The next question was obvious enough. There was still the possibility that the hostage taker had turned the gun on himself.
‘Mr Akhtar?’
‘He’s fine too,’ Helen said.
There were more than a few in the hall who struggled to hide their disappointment.
‘What happened?’
‘The gun went off, that’s all. No harm done and nobody hurt. Well, except for the bloody ringing in my ears.’
‘As long as everything’s OK.’
‘Yes… look, I’m sorry if you were worried. I’m sure everyone started getting a bit jumpy out there.’
Pascoe put a laugh into her voice. ‘Yeah, just a bit.’
There was a longer pause before Helen said, ‘This is going to sound a bit pathetic, but I really need the loo, so… ’
‘OK,’ Pascoe said. ‘We’ll talk again soon.’
The line went dead.
Pascoe looked at Donnelly, but he was already on the radio, reporting the conversation to Chivers. A minute later, the CO19 man came marching back into the hall. He dropped his helmet on the table next to the monitor and grabbed a bottle of water. He looked rather less relieved than everyone else in the room. ‘Up to me, we’d be going in,’ he said.
Donnelly nodded, picked at one of the buttons on his jacket.
‘ What? ’ Pascoe said.
‘How do we know it was just an accident?’
‘I spoke to Sergeant Weeks.’
‘I’m well aware of what she said, but how the hell can we be sure she wasn’t made to say it? How can we trust anything she tells us?’
‘There was nothing to indicate any form of coercion,’ Pascoe said.
Chivers shook his head, then took out his Glock and held it against his temple. ‘It was just a silly accident, nothing to worry about.’ He widened his eyes, spoke in a robotic monotone. ‘We’re all fine, honestly, having a lovely time-’
‘That’s enough,’ Donnelly said.
‘Her speech patterns were normal,’ Pascoe said. ‘The rhythms, the way she was breathing. I know about all that stuff.’
Chivers holstered his weapon, but the look he gave Pascoe made it clear he was unimpressed. As though she had just admitted to studying crop circles or reading tea leaves.
Donnelly sat down. ‘So, in your professional opinion…?’
‘It’s fine, sir,’ Pascoe said. ‘No harm done.’
Chivers took a long swig from his water bottle. ‘Well, at least we know the gun’s loaded,’ he said.
Thorne was torn from a dream, something vaguely sad and sexual which evaporated almost immediately with the clamour of the phone against his chest. He saw the time on the small, brightly lit screen and realised that he had been asleep for less than half an hour.
‘There was a gunshot inside the newsagent’s,’ Donnelly said.
‘ What? ’ Thorne sat up fast.
‘The gun went off for some reason, but nobody’s hurt. Sue Pascoe spoke to DS Weeks and assures us that everything’s fine.’
A pungent scrap of the dream drifted across Thorne’s mind, just for a second or two. A woman he had briefly known called Anna Carpenter. Alive again, with skin that tasted of salt.
‘I’ll come down,’ Thorne said.
‘There’s no need.’
‘I wasn’t asleep anyway.’
‘Look, it’s up to you, but I think you’ll be more use to us if you try and get your head down. More use to her.’
It made sense. Thorne knew he would struggle to get back to sleep, but could not pretend that he was not exhausted.
‘We’re handing over to the night shift,’ Donnelly said. ‘And I’ve briefed the SIO to call you if anything else happens, OK?’ He told Thorne he would see him first thing the following morning at the RVP, assured him they were leaving the safety of Helen Weeks in good hands.
Thorne sat in the dark for a while afterwards, thinking about the handful of occasions in the last twenty years when he had thought he might be about to die. Those slow-motion, shit-yourself seconds. Each moment was pin-sharp and terrible, though oddly more comfortable lying curled in his memory than those mercifully fewer times when he had felt himself capable of killing.
Thorne hoped that Helen was keeping such feelings at bay, though he knew they might well come along later on.
He pushed the idea from his mind, tried to focus instead on what he might do to help her. He thought about what Hendricks had said and imagined himself trying to shovel pills into Amin Akhtar’s mouth. Forcing him to swallow, his hand over the boy’s nose as he retched and kicked and bit.
He knew Hendricks was right. However perfect the timing of that theft from the dispensary was, it had to have been done another way.
He got up and switched on the light, then gathered together the papers that were spread out across the small table. Was the answer somewhere in those reports? Or would he come face to face with the person responsible for Amin’s death tomorrow?
If he had not done so already.
He turned the television on and picked up the dirty plates that were still lying on the floor. He carried them out to the kitchen. He ran hot water across the dried food and left them in the sink. Then he opened the fridge.