John Eider - Not a Very Nice Woman

‘Two… no, three doors along on your left.’

Glass gestured for one of his staff, the Sergeant who Grey had been in the car with and who had driven he and Ludmila to the Cedars the night before, to poke his nose around the corner,

‘I can see Mars, sir,’ he reported, ‘through the smashed door at the end.’

‘What’s he doing?’ asked Glass.

‘Flat out on his back. He’s about twenty yards away, direct line of sight.’

‘Where’s his gun?’

‘Can’t see.’

‘Can you see the injured man?’

‘No, but I can see the blood on the doorframe nearest the end.’

‘Damn, if only been able to drag himself closer…’

‘How many doors?’ he asked the Sergeant now safely returned.

‘Three on the left, one on the right.’

‘Are all the doors along here unlocked?’ Glass asked the lone civilian.

‘Yes, this corridor’s all ours, none of them would be locked.’

‘Good, then you get downstairs now, keep yourself hidden; but don’t go outside as you’ll be back in his line of fire.’

‘Plus, the crowd will get agitated if they see movement,’ added Grey.

To pats on the back, the man was free to scuttle down the corridor to find a hidden corner of a first-floor room. The remaining five were all within a few feet of each other, crouched at the top of the stairs and talking in whispers thus far; but after Glass gave them simple instructions of which room to each head for, he whispered finally into his radio, ‘Moving into position to engage,’ before putting his finger to his mouth and gesturing them to rise.

As one they bolted around the corner, there was only momentary confusion as Glass and one other ran to the only door on the right-hand side, Grey and the other two to the second door along the left. Having gotten this far unseen, the Sergeant — a first aider and keen to find the wounded shopkeeper — risked running to the furthest door on the left, the one with the bloodstains, broken glass from the smashed end-door kicking up underfoot as he darted in and lodged himself inside the doorframe.

Seeing him do this, Natasha, who Grey had spent an hour in the unmarked car at the end of Mansard Lane with the night before, and who was another charged with a first aid kit, risked the same; yet from his vantage point peeking around his doorframe Grey saw in gruesome slow motion as Mars, alerted to their presence by the sound of glass beneath the Sergeant’s boots, in one movement pulled himself half-up from his somnambulant state and swung the shotgun that had been resting hidden along his right side up and over himself to fire a second round through the already shattered end-door. Distracted by his movement, Natasha slipped on the blood and glass on the floor and fell into the room catching the doorframe in her midriff, leaving her legs hopelessly exposed in the corridor.

Unable to shoot with her blocking the corridor ahead of him, from across the corridor Grey had seen the pain in Glass’ expression as he first yelled at her impotently to get down; then to everyone to get back as a roar of shotgun pellets ripped the walls of the narrow passageway and splintered the doorframes they were each hiding inches behind.

Again Grey heard the wails from the crowd some distance away, even as the glass from the door and inner-windows above him continued to fall and smash all over and around. Moving carefully between shards and razor-sharp fallen metal blinds, Grey got himself back in position to see the damage done to the corridor.

The youngest of the group had already burst back out into the corridor and fired off three wild rounds in Mars’ direction.

‘Hold your fire, hold your fire,’ called Glass. ‘You want to kill us all?’

‘Permission to go out there and finish him, sir,’ asked the lad aquiver with anger and adrenalin.

‘Not if he’s down, son.’

And he was, the energy of rousing himself for that impossibly effective second blast seeming to leave Mars knocked out even colder.

The Sergeant in the room at the corridor’s far end had pulled Natasha in with him,

‘Shotgun wounds to the legs, sir. Flesh wounds.’

‘The shopkeeper?’

‘Looks like glass in his back and legs, sir. Both need ambulances.’

‘This has gone on long enough,’ said Glass, as Grey saw him stand up and march right out past the damage and through the smashed end-door to approach Mars, pistol in hand and pointed at the prone man’s face,

‘One move from you and you’re dead. Now throw the shotgun away.’

But there was nothing more to come, Grey already standing openly in the corridor with the agitated young Constable,

‘You’re hit, sir.’

‘What?’ Grey felt his collar was wet, and drawing his hand back saw it thick with blood. But there was no pain, at least not yet,

‘Must be a cut from the glass. Don’t worry.’

‘All clear, call the ambulances.’ Shouted Glass coming back inside. ‘And get a third, he’s bad out there. You, cuff him,’ he said to the Constable, who instantly dashed out to oblige. ‘And if you wanted your confession,’ he said to Grey, ‘then get it while you can. You injured?’

But Grey didn’t need to answer, passing him in the doorway just in time to see Glass enter the bloodied end-room and hear his words to his fallen colleague,

‘You hold in there, love. You’ll get a medal for this.’

‘That’s an ugly weapon,’ said the young Constable still coming down after the nerves of the raid. He was stood next to Grey above the motionless and handcuffed Patrick Mars, looking to the shotgun kicked four yards away across the flat roof. ‘What were they doing with that in a shop? I mean, I could just about understand a baseball bat.’

‘Oh, you see these weapons turn up in amnesties, things you wouldn’t believe.’

The building had been flooded with reinforcements after the all-clear had been sounded, and the crowd able to mingle freely again by the shops and discuss what had just happened to them, ‘Did you see it? I could have been shot!’

Paramedics were on site and ambulances waiting on the road, though they were making sure Mars got treated last.

‘Where’s the doctor?’ he called from the ground.

‘Treating the female officer you shot,’ spat back the Constable, with anger Grey wasn’t going to reprimand.

‘Well, you shouldn’t have women on the front-line then.’

‘There wouldn’t be a front-line if…’

Grey stepped in, ‘Why don’t you try and find us both a cup of coffee?’

‘Okay, but if he tries to move, sir, shoot him.’

‘Don’t worry, I will.’

Grey was left alone standing over Mars,

‘He’s got a point though, there was no point hurting her, or the shopkeeper.’

‘You’re trying to moralise me? Don’t you think I’m a little past that?’ he asked groggily.

‘Fair point.’

The man’s speaking was strained, and Grey wondered if he was really injured? After all, Derek’s screwdriver had gone in somewhere. Yet he could only see cuts and bruises, he couldn’t be any worse than his victims, and an extra paramedic would be found for him anytime now.

‘And that’s all your going to ask me?’

‘What would you have me ask you then, Patrick?’

‘Why I did it.’

‘Oh, I think we know most of it.’

‘You’ve been busy.’

‘I think you received a call from your son Peter, away in the Navy Cadets, something along the lines of, “Esther’s found some woman who was married to Granddad, who bought your painting of the bear…”’

The man’s face collapsed as he repeated his son’s words to him,

‘“She’s Esther’s tutor, lives at that old people’s place in town, by the trees.” Esther’d told him everything. Of course I knew where he meant.’