Ready or Not (42 page)

Fifty Nine

Sophie fell as she stumbled out of the building. A man in plain clothes came running towards her and it was then she noticed the small army of policemen dotted around the vast car park like toy soldiers, many of them armed with guns.

             
              ‘Come on,’ the man said, lifting her to her feet. ‘You’re safe now.’

             
              Chris took her to the ambulance that was waiting nearby. ‘I’m fine, honestly,’ she said, shrugging off the blanket that someone tried to put around her and refusing the offer of water.

             
              ‘What’s your name?’ Chris asked.

             
              ‘Sophie,’ she told him.

             
              ‘You’re Neil Davies’ daughter?’

             
              ‘Yes,’ she grimaced. ‘But I’d rather people didn’t know that.’

             
              ‘Who’s in there, Sophie?’

             
              ‘My brother’s still in there.’ The hard exterior crumbled and Sophie started to cry. ‘And my auntie.’

             
              ‘Claire?’

             
              ‘Yeah.’ Sophie pulled her sleeve over her hand and used it to wipe her eyes. ‘How do you know her name?’

             
              ‘Is your father in there?’ Chris asked. He could explain how he knew later. Right now they needed to concentrate on getting everyone out of the warehouse alive.

             
              She nodded. ‘And two of your lot. Matthew, his name is, and Kate.’

             
              Chris looked back at the warehouse. The armed response unit had moved in, but something was wrong. He could see a few still in the doorway and the negotiator was now making his way inside the building.

             
              ‘Who was just shot, Sophie?’ Chris asked. He thought of Kate and held his breath, fearing the worst.

             
              ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Kate managed to untie me. My father and Matthew were fighting so they weren’t looking. That’s when I made a run for it.’

             
              She pushed a hand through her blonde hair, moving it away from her face. Fat tears continued to well from her eyes.

             
              ‘Matthew and your father were fighting?’ Chris repeated. It was too incredible to believe. Chris would never have thought Matthew had it in him.

             
              Sophie looked up at him. ‘That one of yours, that Matthew,’ she said, ‘he isn’t who you think he is.’

             
              Chris looked back at the warehouse. The place had gone eerily quiet and armed response officers were coming back from the building. Chris didn’t have time to work out what was going on with Matthew now. All he could focus on was making sure Kate, Claire and Ben got out safely.

             
              ‘I have to go back,’ he said. ‘Stay with the paramedics – they’ll look after you, OK? We’re going to get the rest of your family out safely.’

             
              He began to walk back to the warehouse when Sophie called him to wait. She ran over to him. ‘I don’t know what’s going on,’ she told him, her faced creased with confusion. ‘But I think I’m Kate’s niece.’

Sixty

Neil bolted the inner door shut as armed police began entering the warehouse. Kate, cowering by the wall beside him, waited for the blow. It didn’t come. She looked up. Matthew lay on his back on the floor at the other side of the room. Blood pumped from the hole the bullet had made in his chest. Kate felt herself heave and fell to her knees, retching at the mess.

                            ‘He trusted you,’ she choked.

             
              ‘Like I said,’ Neil said from somewhere beside her. ‘Never trust anyone.’ His voice was cold and emotionless.

             
              Ben Davies was white with fear. His brown hair was stuck to his forehead in sweaty clumps and, despite the chill that filled the cold warehouse his face was wet with perspiration. Claire was awake again, her eyes fixed on Matthew’s body and the pool of blood that soaked his chest. She dared not look at Neil, who paced the floor in front of her.

             
              ‘Now look,’ Neil said, gesturing towards Matthew and turning to Kate. ‘Look what you made me do.’

             
              Kate, still on her knees, dragged herself across the floor to Matthew. His eyes were still open, staring past her, seeing nothing. His mouth was fixed in a macabre twist, somewhere between shock and fear. Kate held her breath. She tried to look at the wound dispassionately, but she couldn’t; his blood was everywhere.

             
              ‘You have to get him help,’ she said, looking up at the man that was her brother.

             
              ‘It’s too late for that,’ he replied coldly.

             
              She felt Matthew’s blood seeping through her tights. She pulled away, but it was too late; his blood was all over her legs. It was still warm and the heat of it on her skin made her gag. She turned and threw up on the floor, her vision blurred; the room moved around her in sickening shapes, throwing the world off balance.

             
              There was a bang at the inside door.

             
              ‘Neil,’ the negotiator said. ‘Neil, this is John, please talk to me. If someone’s hurt, let us help them.’

             
              Kate heard movement in the next room. Footsteps hurried across the floor, echoing from the sections of roof that were still in place. At least, she thought, they were a little closer now. It still wasn’t close enough though. Someone would break the door down. There wouldn’t be enough time for him to shoot all three of them, Kate thought, but he’d have the time for at least one.

             
              Neil raised a hand to his lips and turned to his son. Ben flinched, scared rigid in his seat.

             
              Neil gave Claire a fleeting glance before turning back to Kate. ‘Why’d you let her go?’ he asked reproachfully.

             
              ‘She’s just a child,’ Kate said. Fear lodged itself tightly in her throat. ‘None of this is her fault.’ She nodded towards Ben, then Claire. ‘It’s not theirs either,’ she said. ‘Please. Just let them go.’

             
              ‘If I open that door,’ Neil said, stepping towards her, ‘it’s game over.’

             
              He stepped callously over Matthew’s body, careful not to set foot in the man’s blood. ‘By the way,’ he said chattily, taking Kate by the arm and pulling her to her feet. ‘Talking of game over, we never did finish that game of hide and seek, did we?’

             
              Pulling Kate with him, Neil walked over to Claire. Claire’s face contorted with fear as he approached. She squirmed in her chair, but the tape was tight around her legs and arms. Neil reached for her neck and pulled loose the scarf she was wearing, ripping it from her. ‘Who was doing what?’ he asked, pulling the scarf taut between both hands. ‘Were you hiding, or was I?’

             
              Kate looked away from him. She didn’t want to play his sick games; she just wanted this over with. If he was going to shoot her she wished he’d just do it.

             
              ‘Kate,’ he said. He moved behind her and put the scarf around her throat, pulling it tightly against her skin. He leaned to whisper in her ear. ‘Who was hiding? Me or you?’

             
              ‘I was hiding,’ she told him resentfully.

             
              ‘Perfect.’

             
              Neil lifted the scarf over her eyes and tied it tightly behind her head. Kate was blinded, in darkness. Next to her, she heard Claire struggling to say something.

             
              ‘Now,’ Neil said from somewhere behind her. ‘Here are the rules. I count to ten and you try and hide. Your options are limited. Try to use your imagination.’

             
              Somewhere in the distance, Kate heard a helicopter. There was no sense of relief now. They were already too late.

             
              ‘One.’

             
              Kate stood her ground. If she tried to move she would only walk into Claire, or worse trip over Matthew’s body, and besides, there was nowhere she could go. There was nowhere to hide. 

             
              ‘Two.’

             
              She heard the legs of a chair thudding on the warehouse floor. She winced, dreading what Neil might be doing to either Ben or Claire.

             
              ‘Three.’

             
              Beside her, Claire continued to writhe in her seat, her mumbling muted by the gag in her mouth.

             
              ‘Four.’

             
              There was a noise somewhere above her, clattering on the warehouse roof.

             
              ‘Five.’

             
              Kate thought of her father, dying alone on the hallway floor. He wasn’t alone, she reminded herself. She swallowed loudly and the sound of it rang in her ears.

             
              ‘Six.’

             
              She was fourteen years old again. It was seven years after her brother had disappeared from their lives. She was sitting on the top step of her parents’ staircase, listening to her parents argue in the kitchen below.

             
              ‘Seven.’

             
              ‘Why weren’t you watching him?’ her mother cried, her voice carrying up the stairs and onto the landing.

             
              ‘Eight.’

             
              ‘Why weren’t you watching him?’ she screamed again. ‘Why weren’t you watching our son?!’ There was the sound of breaking glass; something being thrown across the room, smashing against the wall.

             
              ‘Nine.’

             
              Fourteen year old Kate held her breath. ‘He wasn’t mine to watch,’ her father’s voice taunted. Thirty seven year old Kate held her breath. She was going to have the last word.

             
              ‘Ten. Coming…ready or not.’

             
              Neil held the gun at arm’s length and pointed it at Kate.

             
              ‘He wasn’t your father,’ she said quickly, the words pouring from her mouth while she was still alive to speak them. She had never said it aloud before – had never told another living soul that she knew her mother’s secret – and it felt good to finally admit it to herself and to hear the words for what they were. ‘Mum had an affair and you were the other man’s,’ she blurted. ‘That’s why my dad got rid of you.’

             
              She braced herself for the bullet that was going to end her life.

             
              A final shot rang through the warehouse. 

Sixty One

Just before the third and final shot rang through the eerie silence of the industrial estate, Chris searched for Andrew Langley via the internet on his mobile phone.
Sophie’s words had resonated and he recalled what Kate had told him yesterday. Someone knows something about Daniel. Too much to be a coincidence. Too much that all this had fallen in Kate’s lap by chance.

             
              He found the PI’s website and called the number of the office.  

             
              ‘Hello, Andrew Langley’s office?’

             
              ‘This is DCI Chris Jones, South Wales Police,’ Chris told the woman. ‘Is Mr Langley there at the moment?’

             
              There was a lengthy pause. ‘Andrew’s in hospital,’ the woman finally spoke. ‘I found him here this morning.’ Her voice broke and she sounded as though she was going to cry. ‘He’d been attacked.’

             
              Chris allowed a moment for the information to absorb. After thirty years of false hopes and leads that led nowhere Kate had been given a link to her brother. Then Sophie’s declaration. Now this.

             
              ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said quietly. ‘How is he?’

             
              ‘Not good,’ his assistant said. ‘We’re just waiting. I wanted to be here, in case anyone wondered where he was.’

             
              ‘Of course. Look, I’m sorry to ask this now, but do you know anything about Daniel Kelly.’

             
              ‘Do you know him?’ the woman asked quickly.

             
              ‘No,’ Chris told her. ‘I know Kate.’

             
              ‘Andrew’s been trying to get hold of her. Is everything ok?’

             
              Chris hesitated before responding. How could he answer? He didn’t know one way or another. What he did know was that this woman had had enough to handle for one day.

             
              ‘Everything’s fine,’ he lied.

             
              The sound of the shot echoed around him, hammering in his chest and pinning his feet to the ground.

Sixty Two

It had started to rain. Kate felt raindrops hit her face and for a frightening moment thought it was blood spattering her cheek. She stood transfixed, afraid to move, afraid to speak; afraid to let go of the breath she had been holding in case it was her last.

             
              There was another noise beside her, something brushing past her and when the scarf was lifted from her face and she dared to open her eyes, Kate saw the black-clad man who had shot her brother standing in front of her. She looked up through the gap where the roof should have been and saw the top of the fire tender ladder through the gap; the ropes from which the gunman had been lowered swinging in the air, almost invisible.

             
              On the floor behind him, Daniel lay lifeless.

             
              Kate moved her hands behind her back, working the life back into her arms. She was alive.

             
              The gunman unbolted the door and armed response rushed in. Someone untied Ben, who quickly ran out crying for his sister. Claire, too stunned and weak to move, stayed sitting in the chair she had been tied to.

             
              From among the unfamiliar faces Chris suddenly appeared. He rushed to her, putting his arms around her and holding her close. She buried her head in his chest.

             
              ‘I am so sorry,’ he told her, speaking softly into her hair. ‘I said I wouldn’t let you come to harm.’

             
              Kate breathed him in, grateful for the familiarity of him. ‘I’ll let you off,’ she said looking up at him, ‘if you please get the keys for these things.’ She indicated the handcuffs. They were dead weights on her wrists.