‘You fucking tricked me, you bitch!’ he screamed.
‘No,’ Rachel said, scrambling up, ‘no, wait-’
The gunshot cracked loud as a mortar. Rachel was flung back, swung round, searing pain in her upper arm, and the stink of gunpowder in her throat. She fell, landing on her back, smacking her head on the floor. Her ears were ringing, roaring, and she could just make out the noise of the buzzer sounding again and again.
‘Fuck!’ She heard him swear.
There was a throbbing in her left side, a deep ache travelled down her arm and through her back. A safe house, shot to death in a safe house. Fucking ironic, no?
She would not let him do this to her. Not some fucked-up little tosser from Manorclough adding her to his hit list, to impress his racist twat of a father. No way, mate.
Rachel felt the floor shake as he came closer, sensed him bending over her. Felt him nudge her with his foot. A move that sent pain slicing through her and brought vomit in her throat. She played dead, tried to still her breathing and cracked open an eyelid the smallest possible fraction.
She would have one chance.
‘Fuck,’ he said again.
Rachel lunged. One hand, her good hand, a vice around his ankle. Her right foot flying up, knee bent, to kick at his wrist. She heard the muffled snap as she connected with the bones, his howl and her own yelp as the agony washed through her afresh, the world spinning and darkness looming. The crash as the gun hit the sliding frosted-glass door to the kitchen, shattering it like crystal rain.
He bent to free himself from her grasp and once he was low enough she let go of his leg and grabbed his arm, using his own momentum to pull him forward and haul him off balance, yanking him down and to her side, shuffling past him. A move she taught beginners at the self-defence class. Use the assailant’s weight and direction of movement in your favour. Work with gravity, pull, don’t push.
She scooted across the floor to get the gun.
Her left arm was useless, warm blood spread a growing stain on her blouse across her left breast, dripped down her arm. He was on his knees as she staggered upright, gun pointing at him.
Janet was still outside, visible on the screen, talking on a phone.
Keeping the gun on Connor, who was getting up, Rachel edged over to the intercom. Using her right elbow to press the buzzer, she missed, tried again and heard the crackle. ‘Janet,’ she said, ‘we’re coming out.’
‘Shot fired,’ Janet told Gill before the connection was lost.
Gill acted immediately, calling for help. ‘Gill Murray here, I’ve an officer under threat, possibly injured, shots fired at a safe house. I want an armed response unit there now. A second officer outside the scene can update you on arrival.’
‘Will do.’
Immediately that call was over, Gill rang and requested a hostage negotiator. She also rang the contact in witness protection who had allocated the safe house to the Tandys. ‘The safe house, how do we get in?’
‘Only one entrance, at the front,’ she said. ‘Do you know whereabouts in the property they are?’
‘Not as yet, why?’ said Gill.
‘We have a back-up procedure. Access through the house next door, via the basement, which leads up to a locked storage room adjoining the kitchen at the rear of the property or via the first-floor stairs near the entrance hall.’
‘I’ve an officer in there. I don’t know her status,’ said Gill, ‘and until I do I don’t want anyone wading in and putting her at increased risk.’
‘Understood, negotiation first of course,’ she said, ‘but we can get floor plans to your ARU.’
‘Yes, please do that,’ Gill said.
Rapid response protocol was kicking in. Roads being sealed off to isolate the area, residents in nearby buildings evacuated. Had Keane found the safe house? What was his aim? To silence the Tandys? Or was it Rachel he was going after?
Gill paced the room, phone in hand, poised to act as soon as there was word.
‘Walk,’ Rachel said, gesturing to the front door.
He glared at her, defiant. She felt nauseous, tried to swallow but her mouth was parched. Her hand tickled, she glanced down and saw the blood running along the creases in her palm. Love line. Life line.
‘Go on,’ she said, keeping her voice as firm as she could.
‘Or what? You going to shoot me?’ he taunted her.
‘If I have to.’
He didn’t move.
‘It’s over,’ she said. Her head was spinning. If she collapsed… if he got the gun… ‘Walk,’ she said.
He gave her another bitter look. She could see the rage, the tension, bunching the muscles of his face. Then he went ahead along the hallway to the front door.
‘There are officers outside,’ Rachel said, her voice still echoing in her head, her hearing distorted from the blast. ‘Some will be armed.’ He wouldn’t know she was bluffing, had no idea what was happening in the street. Yes, the cavalry might be on their way but the response wouldn’t be instantaneous. ‘No sudden movements. When we get outside you put your hands on your head, d’you understand?’
He didn’t answer.
‘Do you understand?’ she repeated.
‘Yes.’
She held the gun on him as he pulled back the bolts, the ones she had secured when she arrived, then he undid the latch.
He pulled back the door and the brightness of the light hurt her eyes. ‘Hands on head,’ she said.
Janet looked at them, surprise on her face at seeing Connor held at gunpoint. She balked when she saw the blood on Rachel.
‘Connor Tandy,’ Rachel said as they walked him to the car, the howl of sirens growing closer. ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of the murder of Victor Tosin and Lydia Oluwaseyi. You do not have to say anything but it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned-’ she caught her breath, the pain in her arm was changing, a numb tingling like pins and needles replacing the sharp streaks of acute pain, ‘something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Janet opened the rear side door. Rachel still held the gun. ‘Got any ties?’ she said to Janet. They needed to cuff him.
‘In the boot, I’ll get you a bag for that too.’ Janet nodded at the gun. Her face was chalk white, Rachel could see the fear that edged her eyes though to anyone else Janet would appear perfectly calm.
‘Wait there,’ Rachel said to Connor, pushing the door closed. She felt her vision pitch and swim, tried to blink it away and concentrate.
Janet opened the car boot, Rachel moved so she could see her. ‘What the fuck was that?’ she hissed at Janet. She looked down at her blouse, the bloodstain growing. ‘Jesus, Janet?’
‘I didn’t know he was armed, you never said-’
‘I couldn’t say, he was pointing a gun at me.’
‘Are you all right?’ Janet said.
‘Apart from being shot, you mean?’
Janet’s face grew narrower, pinched. ‘“Migraine,” you said. Migraine means come and get me, migraine means I want to go home, I want a lift home now. “Like Taisie,” you said.’
‘If you’d used your imagination-’ Rachel said.
‘I came, didn’t I? I’m here. Look, I’m really sorry-’
A noise made Rachel spin round. Connor was climbing out of the car.
‘Oi,’ she said, ‘get your hands on your-’
He dived at her, the light glinting on a wide arced blade that he swung at Rachel, cutting through her sleeve, her right arm. And he legged it.
Janet shouted, ‘Throw the gun into the car!’ Then to Connor, ‘Stop! Stop now!’
He was halfway down the street.
Rachel ran.
Unable to move her left arm like a piston as she normally would, she found herself lurching to the side and almost stumbling into the walls and railings that fronted the Regency properties. She saw Connor dive into an alleyway. She could hear Janet behind her, the ring of her heels on the pavement and her voice shouting details of their location for the back-up.