Ready or Not (41 page)

             
              Neil tightened his grip on Kate’s arm. ‘Are you going to listen to this crap?’ he said, shoving Kate’s head with the flat of his hand. ‘You’re an officer, Matthew – you know how it works. They tell you they’re on your side then they chop your legs from under you as soon as your head’s turned.’

             
              Matthew looked at them each in turn, from Kate’s face to Neil’s and back again.

             
              ‘You don’t know who to trust, do you?’ Kate said as calmly as was possible when she was held fast in Neil’s grip. ‘And it’s always been that way, hasn’t it, Matthew? You’ve never known who to trust, have you? Do the right thing. Don’t trust Neil.’

             
              ‘His name’s Danny,’ Matthew said angrily, fighting back his sobs. He stepped towards Kate and pointed the gun directly at her. ‘Just stop talking, both of you.’

             
              Kate braced herself, shutting her eyes tightly. She spared a thought for the outside world and wondered what was happening on the other side of the warehouse walls. She wished someone would hurry up and do something. She felt as though she had been trapped in this warehouse for hours and perhaps she had; she had lost all concept of time.

             
              She thought of Chris and swallowed back further tears.

             
              ‘There’s only one way you’re going to get out of this a free man,’ Neil told Matthew slowly, deliberately. ‘You know what you have to do. They all have to die. I’m the one they want – I’m the one they’ll find guilty. As far as they know,’ he continued, pointing to the outer wall of the warehouse, ‘you’re being held here too. You’re on their side. This is nothing to do with you. You can walk back into your life and no one will know a thing. But they all have to die first.’

             
              ‘Don’t listen to him, Matthew,’ Kate said softly. ‘Come on, you’re an officer – you know how it works. Your fingerprints and DNA are all over that gun.’

             
              Matthew looked down at the gun in his hand. Neil reached an arm around Kate and clasped his hand over her mouth, catching her nose and making her cry out in pain.              ‘We can wipe a gun down,’ Neil said flippantly. ‘Not a big deal.’

             
              Matthew was still staring at the gun in his hand. It quivered slightly, getting heavier in his wavering grip. ‘No,’ he said, averting his eyes from Neil. ‘You don’t understand. She’s right. I’m all over this.’

             
              ‘How?’ Neil snapped, his short fuse burning rapidly. ‘They’re all worried about you out there! They think you’re one of them!’

             
              ‘Jamie Griffiths,’ Matthew said quietly, shaking his head. ‘I’m so sorry, Danny. My blood was all over him.’

Fifty Seven

‘Neil,’ the negotiator said, speaking into a megaphone. ‘My name is John. Please come to the door. You don’t have to open it, but we need to talk.’

             
              John, a middle aged officer from Cardiff - trained as a negotiator but rarely called upon to act as such - stepped away from the door.

             
              ‘He’s not going to talk,’ Chris told Superintendent Clayton. ‘We’re way beyond that already.’

             
              The entrance to the industrial estate had been blocked and the armed response team surrounded the warehouse. Workers in all nearby warehouses and offices had been sent home early for the day. A handful had needed to be escorted away by police. One man had even taken his mobile phone out and was filming the action. Chris wondered when he’d be making his debut on YouTube and cursed human nature for being so sickeningly fascinated by anything even remotely morbid. People never failed to amaze and infuriate him.

             
              The negotiator and Clayton had met once before, a few years earlier, when he had successfully talked someone out of torching his own house; the man with the matches and the petrol bomb, his wife and their kids still inside it at the time.

             
              ‘Neil,’ he said again, louder this time. He banged the flat of his hand on the metal door. ‘We just want to talk, Neil. Just come to the door. You don’t have to open it.’

             
              They waited, but there was no response from within.

             
              ‘If we send them in,’ Chris said, gesturing to the armed men around them, ‘someone’s going to get hurt. Or worse. It’s too much of a risk.’

             
              Clayton scanned the building. It was windowless, with no other entrance than the one Neil had bolted shut from the inside.

             
              ‘He hasn’t made any requests even,’ Clayton said, thinking aloud. ‘So what’s he killing time for? What’s he after?’

             
              ‘I don’t know,’ Chris admitted. ‘But there are two officers in there. The longer we leave it, the less the chance that two will come back out.’

             
              There was sudden shouting from within the building: a man’s voice; they couldn’t tell whose.

             
              ‘So what do you suggest?’ Clayton asked. His voice was uneasy; agitated. 

             
              Chris looked at the roof of the warehouse; at the gaping holes that opened the building to the sky.

             
              ‘That should be a last resort,’ Clayton said, following his stare.

             
              Chris resisted the urge to grab the Superintendent by the collar. Clayton wasn’t thinking about Kate and Matthew’s safety; he was thinking about the cost of calling out further back up.

             
              He gritted his teeth. ‘What other choice do we have?’ he challenged.

             
              Clayton nodded to one of the uniformed men. ‘Get a fire engine with a tender and an extending ladder out here,’ he said. ‘If they’re not going to come out, we’ll have to go in.’

Fifty Eight

‘You stupid son of a bitch.’

             
              Neil pushed Kate to one side, squaring up fully to Matthew, despite the gun still held, still quivering in Matthew’s hand.

             
              ‘You told me everything went to plan.’

             
              Kate, forgotten for the moment, moved across the room and sat back on the floor by Sophie. The tape Kate had worked on earlier had already loosened slightly and Sophie was now pushing her legs forward and backwards, trying to free herself from the tape’s hold. Kate found that if she worked at it using the metal link between the handcuffs, she could loosen the tape holding Sophie’s arms.

             
              ‘It did,’ Matthew said. He held Neil’s stare. Neil, who had known him since childhood and knew when he was lying, saw straight through him.

             
              ‘What happened?’ he demanded.

             
              Matthew said nothing. He shifted nervously on the spot, shuffling his feet and murmuring to himself.

             
              ‘For fuck’s sake, Matthew! What happened?!’

             
              Matthew swallowed tensely. His unusually prominent Adam’s apple danced frantically. ‘I told you,’ he said adamantly. ‘I followed him home from the pub. I did what you asked me to, just like you said.’

             
              ‘So how have they got your blood?’ Neil stepped forward, his fists clenched at his side.

             
              Matthew waved the gun, urging Neil to stay where he was. He suddenly sobbed; a loud and uncontrolled bawl that made Kate stop what she was doing.

             
              ‘I didn’t want to do it,’ he said, his voice desperate; childishly pitiful. ‘Kate,’ he turned, his eyes pleading with her. ‘I didn’t want to do it – you’ve got to believe me.’ He looked back at Neil. Words suddenly poured from his mouth, each one stumbling over the last. ‘I followed him,’ he blurted, ‘but I was never going to do it. I didn’t want to do it, but I didn’t want to let you down. I followed him – he was just like you said he was, just as horrible. There was a girl in the street, she was only young, and you should’ve heard the way he spoke to her, it was disgusting. I knew why you wanted me to do it, but I couldn’t – I just couldn’t. I’d already changed my mind and then…’ He paused and caught his breath. ‘Then he stopped at the bus shelter and he saw me.’

             
              Neil laughed bitterly. ‘I knew you’d balls it up.’ He turned his back on Matthew and walked away from him as Matthew continued with his explanation.

             
              ‘He went for me,’ Matthew said. ‘He asked what I was looking at and the next thing I know he’s attacking me like a madman. He cut my face: my blood was on his hands. He was looking for a fight. It was self defence.’ He turned back to Kate. ‘It was self defence, I swear it was. He was going to kill me. I had to do it! I did it for you though – just like you said. Brothers, right?’

             
              Neil shook his head. ‘Fuck,’ he shouted, spinning back to face him. ‘One thing, Matthew. One thing I asked you to do for me!’

             
              ‘And I did!’ Matthew shouted back. ‘I did fucking do it!’

             
              Neil’s face broke into an unexpected smile.

             
              ‘Well done, Matthew,’ he said, the smile breaking into a hideous laugh. He clapped his hands slowly as Matthew looked on in confusion. ‘Of course you did. Of course you did everything I told you to. That’s what you do, isn’t it? Did you think for a second that I didn’t know you’d fuck it up?’

             
              Sophie turned and looked anxiously at Kate as the tape around her legs fell to her ankles. Kate shook her head slowly, urging the girl to stay quiet and still and not draw any attention to them. Sophie turned back and Kate continued to rub at the tape holding Sophie’s arms, her own arms burning with the weight of the cuffs cutting into her wrists.

             
              ‘When were you going to tell me?’ Neil asked softly. He was walking back to Matthew, his face furrowed once again with rage; his bright eyes shining with anger. 

             
              ‘I don’t know,’ Matthew admitted; the panic rising in his voice. ‘I don’t understand. I don’t want to go to prison, Danny. I can’t. I won’t last two minutes in there. Do you know what they’d do to me, an ex-cop?’

             
              The final piece of tape holding Sophie’s arms snapped and Kate had to stop herself from sighing with relief. She moved on the floor beside Sophie, who looked down at her, waiting for instruction. She raised a hand slowly, watching her father and Matthew to make sure neither of them noticed as she removed the gag from her mouth.

             
              ‘When I say,’ Kate mouthed. ‘Run.’

             
              If she hadn’t thought Sophie fast enough and gutsy enough, Kate would never have expected it of her. But the girl was brave, Kate knew. She had more fire burning in her at fifteen than Kate had ever had. And she wouldn’t let her come to harm.

             
              Anger had spread across Neil’s face like an unsightly rash. In contrast, Matthew was crushed. He had wanted Daniel to be proud of him, but all he had done was anger him. He had failed him. Now he was going to leave him, like he did when he left the children’s home all those years before; leave him on his own, with no one else to turn to for help.

             
              The gun held in his hand, Matthew thought about killing him. He had already killed once: he could do it again. He’d been set up. Danny, his only true friend, had planned this all along. Maybe Kate would help him. She would realise that it was Daniel, not him, who had really been behind all this. She would understand that he had pushed him into doing it. Maybe she would forgive him. Maybe they would all forgive him when they realised how persuasive Daniel could be.

             
              Daniel held his stare and in that moment, both men realised that Matthew wouldn’t pull the trigger. He couldn’t do it. He had killed once, but he had done it reluctantly, unintentionally and the memory of Jamie Griffith’s body lying dying in the bus shelter had haunted him ever since. Hadn’t he had to leave the room whenever the man’s name was mentioned back at the station? Didn’t he give himself away every time he failed to hide his nervousness? It had been killing him for over a year, eating away at his insides every time he saw the face of a small child whose father wasn’t coming home.

             
              For as long as he could remember now, Matthew had wanted to be Daniel. Growing up, Daniel was his best friend, his older brother; the only one who made sure he was safe. The one he looked up to. He was all he had. But who kept Daniel safe? No one. When Neil was Daniel he didn’t need to be looked out for; he looked out for himself and no one seemed to bother him as a result. Matthew wanted to be the same. He wanted to be Daniel, but when it came down to it, he just wasn’t him. He could never be him.

             
              Realising Matthew wasn’t going to pull the trigger Neil lunged forward and grabbed for the gun. Kate gave Sophie the cue to run and the girl sprang to her feet, racing across the room towards the door. Kate ran beside her, shielding her from a possible bullet.

             
              Neil and Matthew fought for the gun, and neither was quick enough to stop Sophie as she raced through the inside door and began to unlock the door that led back to the outside world. She turned back to Kate, who shook her head.

             
              ‘Go!’ she urged Sophie. ‘I’ve got to stay with them.’

             
              Kate pushed the inside door closed with her back. As she did, the noise of the gun shot blasted through the warehouse.