William Shaw - She's leaving home

“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.

He walked back to the police car where Briggs was still sitting, and yanked open the door.

“Do you keep guns in the house?” he demanded.

Briggs said, “Is she OK?”

“Tell me about the guns. How many?”

“Three. Duck guns,” he said. “My wife. Is she OK?”

“Christ,” said Breen. He put his head in his hands.

Five minutes passed. “How long before any more police get here?” said Breen.

“Twenty minutes,” said the sergeant.

“The longer he’s in there, the harder it will be to get him out.”

“Not exactly simple right now,” said the sergeant.

On the far side of the Briggses’ house, an elderly man appeared in a red woolen dressing gown. A woman peered out from behind him with a small Yorkshire terrier in her arms. She wore large Wellingtons under her pink dressing gown. “Get back inside,” Breen shouted.

“Can someone please tell me what the hell is going on?” called the old man, wandering towards them.

“Go back,” shouted the sergeant.

The man paused. “Good grief. Is that Chris Briggs in the police car?” the man said. “What’s going on, Christopher?”

Bending low, Breen ran towards them. Putting his arms around the old man, he pulled him back, away from the house.

“What’s going on?” he demanded.

“There’s a man with a gun. Go back inside and shut your doors,” Breen said.

The man seemed to take orders well. He turned and walked back, taking his wife and their dog with him. Their house was two doors along from the Briggses’, a bigger cottage, but with paint peeling from the woodwork.

The sergeant came up. “Colonel? Do you have a gun?” The man hesitated.

“Of course he has,” said his wife. “Haven’t you, dear?”

It turned out the colonel was a retired military man who kept a revolver in a cigar box. He returned with the box and opened it; the gun was covered by a handkerchief. “You won’t tell anyone, will you? About the gun. Only I never bothered getting a license,” he said, unwrapping it.

“Course not, sir,” said the sergeant.

It was an elderly Webley service revolver. There were a few rounds lying in the box around it. The sergeant released the cylinder latch and pushed four bullets into the chambers.

“It’s been a little while since I used it,” said the old man.

Breen returned to the far side of the house. The barrels of the shotgun had been withdrawn from the door. There was no sign of any movement.

A moth flew into Breen’s face, startling him. He brushed it away. Briggs got out of the car. “What’s going on?”

“Get back in the car.”

“What about my wife? Is she OK? Maybe if I spoke to her?”

“Get back in the car.”

“Frances?” shouted the man. “Are you in there?”

The shotgun emerged from the letter box a second time. “Jesus Christ,” said Briggs. Revolver in hand, the sergeant pulled the professor back towards the police car.

“Sam?”

“Go away, Mr. Breen.”

“Do you have Mrs. Briggs in there?”

The barrels poked out of the door again. “Yes.”

“Have you drugged her too?”

“No. Mrs. Briggs came willingly.”

“That’s a lie,” shouted Professor Briggs.

At that moment there was a sudden commotion behind the house. A man’s scream, followed by a crashing noise. “Help me!”

In that moment the sergeant turned. The revolver’s quick pop was remarkably quiet compared to the shotgun.

“Got the bugger,” the sergeant shouted, still pointing the gun down the alleyway.

Breen ran towards the alley; a man was sprawled on the bare earth, facedown. Breen could see from the gray hairs on his head that it was not Ezeoke. The constable emerged from behind the house, white-faced.

“He came right at me, Sarge. I couldn’t stop him,” he said. “Is he dead?”

They had dragged Okonkwo into the street, away from the side of the house where he had been shot.

He was wearing the same clothes as the day before and was bleeding thickly through them from a wound in the stomach.

“How was I to know there was two of them in there?” protested the sergeant.

“Sorry,” whispered Okonkwo to Breen. His head was propped against a wheel of the police car. Breen took off his jacket and put it over the man. “He is mad. I had not thought he was so mad.”

“He was coming right at me. I thought it was the other one. It’s not my fault.”