Cath Staincliffe - Ruthless

‘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.

The alley joined a wider passageway that ran behind the houses. Connor turned left. Seeing him increase the distance between them, Rachel willed herself on. Her head was thudding, the air in her lungs burned as though she was breathing fire, her eyesight kept blurring.

Wheelie bins, blue, brown and black, were dotted along the path in twos and threes. A cat skittered out of the way, as Connor belted along. Sirens were upon them.

Rachel looked ahead to the end where the alley met the road and saw vertical lines. She blinked and realized it was a gate. The alley was gated as a safety measure. Connor was trapped.

He hurled himself at the wrought iron and tried to get a purchase, to climb, but slithered down again and again.

Rachel was closer. Ten yards, five. A stitch crippling in her side. When she stopped running, just feet from him, he turned, the knife shiny and speckled red where it had sliced into her arm.

‘Drop the knife,’ she gasped.

He was panting, sweat on his skin, his face reddened with exertion.

Rachel saw Janet beyond the gates, she must’ve gone round the other way. The sirens were too loud for Connor to hear her approach.

‘Drop the knife,’ Rachel said.

‘You want it? Come and get it.’

Rachel’s breath caught, she felt the world tilt. She bent slightly, putting her right hand, the one she could still feel though sticky with blood from the cut, on her right knee for support.

Janet reached the far side of the gate. ‘Connor,’ she shouted behind him. He twisted round and she squirted his eyes with CS gas.

Connor screamed and dropped the knife, raised his hands and rubbed at his eyes.

‘Put your hands through the gate,’ Janet yelled.

‘My eyes,’ he squealed, ‘I can’t see! My fucking eyes.’

‘Hands. Now. Put your hands through the gate,’ Janet repeated.

He did as she said, tears streaming down his face, coughing and swinging his head as if he could dislodge the blindness caused by the chemical.

Janet snapped the plastic cuffs on, effectively tying him to the bars.

Rachel saw the vans pull up on the roadside near Janet. The men piling out. The sirens cut out with one last ‘whoop’ and she heard shouting, glimpsed Mrs Tandy dropping her shopping bags, yelling, and one of the men restraining her.

Rachel moved to lean against the wall, head spinning in time to the blue flashing lights, filling with bubbles, so dizzy, and her knees dissolving. Everything falling away.

Janet waited for Rachel in A &E. If she never had to see the inside of a hospital again it’d be too soon. They should have given her a uniform by now, or a mop and bucket. First there’d been her own near-death experience, belly sliced open requiring multiple surgeries, then once she was up and running, her mother had collapsed at home, thankfully having enough time and wit to call Janet for help. After the emergency appendectomy Dorothy had needed a hysterectomy. Then there had been Olivia. And now Rachel.

Janet clung to the fact that Rachel had been upright and able to go after Connor. Surely it couldn’t have been anything major if she could run like that? But what if the bullet had nicked a lung, or some minor debris had worked its way round to her heart or brain?