Mark Billingham - Good as Dead

Welcome.

‘Well no,’ Bracewell stammered. ‘Of course not… I mean, obviously . It’s a very tricky situation for everyone.’

When the prison officer arrived, Thorne stood to gather up the files and Bracewell moved quickly from behind his desk to assure him that he would remain available if there was anything else he could help with. With his hand pressed firmly between the governor’s two, Thorne said that he would bear the offer in mind.

Then he turned and followed his escort out of the office.

Decided, on reflection, that perhaps there was a miniature portrait of the Queen tucked away in one of the drawers.

In the school’s assembly hall, the temporary Incident Room was up and running. A communications team had set up fax and phone lines and had tapped into a local CCTV feed. Monitors showed live, black and white images of the shopfront from two different angles, while a hastily erected camera in the alleyway behind the property broadcast a picture of the shop’s back door. There was no sound and precious little movement. Occasionally an emergency vehicle moved through shot, or a stray dog that nobody had yet been able to catch. A member of the CO19 team wandered between the two Armed Response Vehicles which were still parked on the street across from the newsagent’s.

Still waiting for instructions.

There were more than two dozen officers working inside the school. Most sat at computers, feeding back any information they could find about the layout of the shop and the man who owned it to the team from Specialist Crime. A few more had come down from Helen Weeks’ unit in Streatham, volunteering to help, but now found themselves with little to do.

Donnelly was at the monitors with Sue Pascoe when Chivers walked across to join them.

They studied the pictures for a while.

‘Phones?’ Chivers said.

Pascoe shook her head. ‘He’s making us wait.’

They had quickly established that there was a landline in the shop, but just as quickly discovered that Akhtar had taken the phone off the hook. Calls being made every fifteen minutes to the mobiles registered to both Helen Weeks and Stephen Mitchell were going straight to voicemail.

‘In for the long haul, I reckon,’ Donnelly said.

Chivers shrugged. ‘Up to you.’

‘Up to Mr Akhtar, I would have thought.’

‘Only if we let him have control of the situation.’

Donnelly stared at the screen. ‘I’m open to suggestions.’

‘Look at those shutters.’ Chivers pointed at the monitor. ‘They’ve already been twisted up at the bottom, see? That’s just kids or what have you. Wouldn’t take us long to get through those.’

‘Long enough for him to do something.’

‘We need to get this sorted quickly,’ Chivers said.

‘What we need,’ Pascoe said, ‘is to open a channel of communication with our hostage taker.’

‘At least let us get Tech Support in here.’ Chivers was looking at Donnelly. ‘Get some microphones up on the roof, take a listen to what’s going on in there.’

‘Too risky,’ Pascoe said. ‘If he thinks there’s anything like that going on, he might do something stupid.’

‘We don’t even know the gun is loaded.’ Chivers stabbed at the monitor again. ‘He’s a newsagent, for Christ’s sake.’

Donnelly looked at Pascoe. She shook her head.

‘We do something without really thinking it through,’ she said, ‘and he’ll be the one making the news.’

Helen listened, waiting and hoping for some reaction.

Akhtar had been in his shop for ten minutes or more, while for most of that time, from the front of the building, a woman’s voice had echoed – crackling and tinny – through a loudhailer.

‘We just want to talk, Mr Akhtar. We need to know that everyone’s all right in there. If we could start some kind of dialogue on the phone, we could begin talking about how we’re going to resolve this. How we can get you what you want without anybody getting hurt.’

When he finally came back into the storeroom, Akhtar was carrying an armful of chocolate bars and bags of crisps. He stood a few steps away from where Helen and Mitchell were chained to the radiator and stared down at them.

‘So, what do you think?’ Helen asked.

‘What do I think about what?’

‘Should we maybe just switch my phone on at least?’

Akhtar blinked, licked his lips.

‘If you don’t communicate with them-’

‘I already said,’ he shouted. ‘When I’m ready.’ He stamped his foot like a petulant schoolboy and shook his head as if clearing it or trying to refocus. Then he smiled suddenly at Helen and Mitchell, calmly opened his arms and dropped the crisps and chocolate at their feet. ‘It’s lunchtime,’ he said. ‘I’m afraid this is the best I can do.’

Helen watched him walk back to the desk and pick up the gun. As far as her stomach was concerned, she did not know where fear ended and hunger began.

‘It’s time to eat,’ he said.

She slowly pulled a chocolate bar towards her with her free hand and tore at the wrapper with her teeth. She bit into it, then nodded towards a packet of crisps. ‘I don’t think I can open that with one hand,’ she said.

Akhtar said, ‘Sorry.’ With the gun still pointed at them, he bent down slowly, opened the two bags of crisps that were closest to him then nudged them across the dirty linoleum floor with his foot.

Mitchell did not seem interested in the food. He never took his eyes off the gun.

‘Can we have something to drink?’ Helen asked.

Akhtar apologised again, the anger having seemingly given way to embarrassment and concern, and hurried back into the shop.

‘You should eat something,’ Helen said to Mitchell.

‘I don’t think I can.’

‘Just a bar of chocolate.’

‘I’d probably be sick anyway,’ he said. He blew out his cheeks and rubbed at his stomach. ‘Butterflies, you know?’

‘Yeah, I know.’ She reached across and laid a hand on his arm.

Akhtar came back in with three cans: Coke, Diet Coke and Sprite. He held them up so that Helen and Mitchell could take their pick.

‘I’ll have the Diet Coke,’ Helen said, ‘if that’s all right. Probably wasting my time worrying about calories while I’m stuffing my face with chocolate, mind you.’ She tried to smile. ‘Might as well make the effort though.’

Akhtar nodded and laughed. He opened the can and laid it down within Helen’s reach, then he raised up the other two, one in each hand. ‘Mr Mitchell?’

Mitchell said he was happy with either.

‘You can have the Coke,’ Akhtar said. He opened the drink and placed it on the floor, then sat back down at the desk. He laid the gun on the desktop and popped the ring-pull on his own can. He looked across at Helen and patted his paunch. ‘I gave up worrying about weight a long time ago,’ he said. ‘All that ghee in everything my wife cooks.’

‘I can’t afford to give up,’ Helen said. She looked at him and swallowed hard. ‘Been struggling with it ever since Alfie was born. Can’t seem to get rid of those few extra pounds, even though I spend half my life running round after the little bugger like a lunatic. Well, you’ve seen how much energy he’s got.’

Akhtar looked away and took a long swig from his can.

Helen was happy to see that Akhtar was feeling uncomfortable. Had she managed to provoke a pang of guilt, or remorse? Perhaps she had simply succeeded in reminding him of his own son. She decided that this could not be helped, that whatever she said, the man would not need to be reminded of the child he had lost.

It was the reason they were there, after all.

She finished the chocolate and started on the crisps. ‘Where did you get the gun, Javed?’