“That’s her car,” said Briggs. A new Hillman Minx, parked a few yards away from the house.
He opened the driver’s door and got out.
“Are they still there?”
“I’m not sure.” He walked hesitantly towards the house. The air blowing off the North Sea was bitterly cold. His long gray hair flew about his face.
“Shut the door. It’s freezing,” complained Carmichael.
Breen leaned over the driver seat and pulled the door to.
Briggs returned to the car, opened it again and leaned in, brushing his hair back. “I think they’re in there. The curtains are drawn but there’s a light on. Shall I knock?”
“No,” said Breen.
“Why not?”
“Get in and shut the fucking door,” said Carmichael.
Briggs sat back in the driver’s seat. “There’s no need for language like that.”
“Sit down,” said Breen, “and don’t do anything.”
“I need to know if she’s OK.”
Breen picked up the radio and searched the frequencies but he could hear nothing. There was a red phone booth about fifty yards past the house. “Stay here.”
“I want to die,” said Carmichael.
After he’d phoned the local police, he returned to the car and waited. Wind hummed in the telephone wires. Clouds scudded low across the sky.
They sat and waited. “My God, you stink,” said Briggs, winding down the window.
“I can’t help it.”
“That’s enough,” Breen hissed at Briggs. “Keep your voice down.”
After around twenty minutes, a police car approached quietly from behind them, lights off.
“You the ones from London?” whispered the senior officer, a thin-faced sergeant with pointed sideburns. He leaned down into the open window of the car. A couple of gangly constables got out and stood behind him.
“Yes.”
“You’ve got a warrant?”
“No time,” said Breen.
The sun was peering over the horizon, turning the white cottages along the seafront a rich red. Seagulls whirled in the graying sky above; more sat on the beach, pointing beak-first into the sharp wind.
“How many in there?” asked the policeman.
“Possibly two men and two women. One is a police officer who may be being held against her will.”
The sergeant nodded thoughtfully. “I got two men,” he said. “We could send for more, only there aren’t too many of us on duty in these parts this time of day.”
Breen considered for a second. “Two should be OK,” he said.
Carmichael leaned forward. “Is there a toilet round here?” he called through the open window.
“Public toilet down there,” said the sergeant.
Carmichael opened the door and stood, bent from the waist, holding his stomach.
“It’ll be closed now, course,” the sergeant said.
“Of course,” said Carmichael. He got back into the backseat and lay down again.
“He OK?” said the policeman.
“He’s sick.”
The officer nodded again. “So just two of you then?”
“One,” said Breen. “He’s a civilian.” He nodded towards Briggs, who scowled back. “Shall we go then?”
Breen got out of the car and walked towards the house, aware of the sound of each footfall. There were two sash windows on the ground floor, one on either side of a front door over which straggled a weedy, blackspot-covered rose. The garden had a large abstract granite sculpture in it that looked a little like a Henry Moore; old pieces of driftwood were strewn around the gravel that surrounded it.
Between the Briggses’ cottage and its neighbor was a small, thin alleyway. The mast of a sailing boat lay down the length of it, varnish peeling. Breen walked as silently as he could along it; behind the house he found a small concrete yard, full of old paint cans, a rusting bicycle and a pile of firewood. A low flint wall separated the yard from the pathway. Behind, another line of houses backed on to them.
Breen tiptoed back round to where the sergeant was standing.
“Two men at the back?” the sergeant whispered. Breen nodded.
A brown-feathered gull sat on the chimney above them, eyeing the two policemen as they moved down the alleyway to cover the rear of the house.
Breen went up to the door, looked over to the sergeant, who nodded; then he knocked loudly on the door with his fist. “Open up,” he shouted. “Police.”
Nothing.
“Sam? I know you’re in there. Open up.”
There was a clattering sound; someone moving behind the door. “Who is this?”
“It’s me, Sam. Cathal Breen. Open up.”
“Mr. Breen?”
“Yes.”
“I am glad it is you, at least.” It was Mr. Ezeoke’s voice. He sounded tired.
“We’ve got you surrounded, Sam. There’s no way out. Where is Constable Tozer?”
There was a long pause.
“Don’t be stupid, Sam.”
There was a weariness to his voice when he said, “It is too late to tell me not to be stupid.”
“Where is Constable Tozer?”
“She is here. She is safe.”
Breen was filled by a sudden sense of lightness. Everything could be OK. Until he heard Ezeoke say that, he had not been aware of how tense he had been for the last fourteen hours.
“Let her out, Sam.”
“She is asleep now.”
“Wake her up, then.”
“I can’t. I’ve given her a pill, Mr. Breen. If I give her back to you, will you let me go?” Breen’s heart started thumping again. His respite had been short-lived.
“You killed two people. You need to come out.”
No answer.
“What did you give her?”
“I will kill myself first.”
“What drugs did you give her?”
“Nitrazepam.”
“What’s that?”
“A sedative to make her sleep. She will not be harmed by it.”
“Is that how you got her here?”
Ezeoke sighed. “She was following us.”
“You forced her?”
“There was a small struggle, but she was not hurt.”
“Is that what you did to Morwenna Sullivan?”
A pause. “I did not mean to kill the girl. It was a mistake. She made too much noise. People would have heard.”
“You strangled her.”
“I did not mean to kill her. All I wanted to do was to keep her until her father gave me the money that he stole off me. But she shouted. She screamed and shouted.”
Fierce, her friend had called her.
“What money, Sam?”
“The money he stole from me. Money to buy guns.”
“So he knew you had his daughter. She was a hostage.”
“I lost my daughter because his daughter perverted her.”
“But he didn’t go to the police because…”
“Because he’d stolen our money.”
There was a longer pause. There was a rattling and two barrels of a shotgun pointed out from the letter box. Breen stepped quickly aside, and moved behind the granite sculpture. The sergeant scrabbled his way back down the short path to the road, shouting, “Jesus! He’s got a bloody gun.” He started gabbling into his lapel radio.
“Let the girl go, Sam,” said Breen from behind the cold gray stone.
“Go away.”
“We can’t go away, Sam.”
One barrel of the gun exploded into the air, sending the gulls on the beach squawking suddenly into the air.
“Fucking hell,” said the sergeant, bent over double, scuttling down the street away to the police car. The barrel moved sideways along the small slot of the letter box towards Breen. He closed his eyes, then heard the sound of the barrels withdrawing from the letter box, followed by the sound of the shotgun being reloaded. He took his chance and ran.
One of the policemen from behind the house came hurtling down the alleyway.
“He’s a nigger. He’s got a gun. Nobody said,” he complained.
“Did you see him?” asked Breen.
“I poked my head up and he was there in the kitchen. He pointed the fucker right at me. Nobody bloody said.”
“Why didn’t you say he had a gun?” hissed the sergeant, still crouched below the low wall.
“I didn’t know he had,” said Breen.