Mark Billingham - Good as Dead

…?’

‘That’s not what he wants,’ Helen said.

Donnelly leaned in close to Thorne and whispered, ‘Ask who’s in there with her. We’ve got a witness who claims there was another customer in the shop.’

‘Are there any other hostages?’ Thorne asked.

‘He’s called Stephen Mitchell,’ Helen said. A man’s voice said something, then Helen gave out an address in Tulse Hill.

Donnelly scribbled it down and handed the piece of paper to a uniformed officer who hurried out of the hall.

‘So, what does he want?’ Thorne asked.

The exchange that followed was punctuated by a series of pauses and muffled conversations as Helen passed on Thorne’s questions, listened to Akhtar, then relayed his responses. ‘He says that his son did not kill himself… that he would never kill himself. He says that the truth has been covered up. You are the one that sent his son to prison… so you are the one who must find out who murdered him.’

Thorne glanced up. Saw that all eyes were on him. ‘Tell him that we’ll mount a full reinvestigation into his son’s death, but that we need to end this situation now.’

While they were waiting for a response, Donnelly scribbled RELEASE MITCHELL? on a piece of paper and passed it to Thorne.

‘He says it will end when you find out what happened to his son.’

‘Tell him that we’re happy to listen to him,’ Thorne said. ‘Tell him that I’ll do what I can, but that we need an act of faith on his part. Tell him that he needs to let Mr Mitchell go.’

Next to him, Sue Pascoe was shaking her head. ‘Never going to happen,’ she said.

‘He says no,’ Helen said.

They could hear the newsagent shouting now.

‘He says he had faith in the law, but not any more… so you need to do what he wants, or things will only get a lot worse.’

Thorne glanced up to see Donnelly and Chivers exchange a knowing look. Donnelly closed his eyes.

‘You have to prove that Amin did not commit suicide,’ Akhtar said. ‘To find out who killed him and why. Or… ’

‘It’s OK, Helen.’ Thorne and everyone else had heard Akhtar clearly enough and Thorne did not want Helen to have to say it.

To hear the terror in her voice.

‘Or I will shoot them both.’

When the call had ended, Helen laid her phone down on the floor in front of her and looked up at Akhtar sitting at the desk. He was breathing heavily and muttering to himself. He seemed pleased about how the conversation with Tom Thorne had gone. He looked back at her.

Said, ‘Thank you.’

‘So, what happens now?’ Helen asked.

Akhtar stood up. He was holding the gun. Next to her, Helen felt Stephen Mitchell flinch.

‘Turn the phone off,’ Akhtar said.

‘What if they want to talk to you? If there’s news.’

‘When I’m ready.’

He pointed the gun and Helen did as she was asked.

‘Now you must try and make yourselves comfortable, and we will hope that Detective Thorne is as good as his word.’

‘He will be,’ Helen said.

‘And is also good at his job.’ Akhtar thought about this for a few moments then walked out through the archway into his shop.

Helen and Mitchell said nothing for a minute or more, then Mitchell spoke quietly, without raising his head.

‘Why wouldn’t he let me go?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘This is all about you, right?’ He looked up and glared at her. ‘Because you’re a copper and he knows they’ll take it more seriously.’ He spoke quickly, hissing out the words. ‘So why the hell do I have to be here? What’s the point of both of us going through this?’

‘You need to shut up and stay calm,’ Helen said. Mitchell looked away. Helen could see that he felt bad about what he had said, but that he was also terrified. ‘Listen, it’s OK. You’re not the only one who’s scared to death.’

Mitchell nodded slowly. They could hear Akhtar moving about in the shop.

‘Will they tell my wife?’ Mitchell asked.

‘Course they will.’

‘She’ll be in bits.’ He tried to smile. ‘She’s even less brave than I am.’

‘They’ll look after her,’ Helen said.

Mitchell let out a long slow breath and straightened his legs.

‘What do you do, Stephen?’

‘I work in a bank,’ he said. ‘On Tottenham Court Road. I was up for a promotion today.’

‘Sorry.’

‘You think that something like this might happen in a bank, you know? Some nutter with a gun. Or a post office, maybe. Not a bloody newsagent’s.’

‘Wrong place, wrong time,’ Helen said. She knew better than most that this was what actually lay behind the majority of violent crime. You walked into the wrong pub, turned the wrong corner, strolled blithely through an estate in the wrong postcode. It was understandable, being scared of boys with knives or men with bombs, but what people really needed to be frightened about was simply being unlucky.

‘There’ll be armed police outside by now, won’t there?’ Mitchell looked towards the back door. ‘Snipers or whatever. I’ve seen this kind of thing on the news.’

Helen said that she thought there would be a Firearms Unit on standby, that they would probably be sealing off the shop. She told him that whoever was running things outside would know what they were doing.

‘So what are they likely to do?’ Mitchell lowered his voice still further. ‘What’s normally the plan with things like this?’

‘There isn’t one,’ Helen said.

‘Oh… OK.’

‘It’s always different and there isn’t any set… protocol. They’ll wait and see what happens.’

Mitchell seemed to take this on board, the idea that, in all probability, nothing would happen quickly. But Helen could see that he was far from reassured and she could hardly blame him. Aside from Akhtar unlocking their handcuffs, opening the shutters and letting them walk out of there, anything that happened was likely to be dangerous for all concerned.

She sat back and listened. Akhtar had stopped moving around, but then she heard the tell-tale sound of pages being turned.

‘He’s reading the paper,’ Mitchell whispered. ‘Looking through the paper like nothing’s happening.’

Helen was still trying to decide how Akhtar himself was handling things, how he was coping. She knew it was important. Could this man who held a gun as though it were a poisonous snake really be that calm? Or was he making as much effort as possible to appear that way?

Whatever the truth was, and whatever Tom Thorne was up to on the outside, they needed Javed Akhtar to remain calm if they were going to stay safe. She and the man from the bank would need to do everything they could to keep him relaxed.

They stiffened when the newsagent appeared suddenly in the doorway. He raised a hand, as though apologising for worrying them. Then he calmly laid the gun down on the desk and asked if they wanted tea.

Thorne was in the playground, on the phone.

He had already called Brigstocke to bring him up to speed and to ensure that all the paperwork pertaining to the suicide at Barndale be sent across to his office at Becke House. He had also requested that a copy of the post-mortem be faxed to Phil Hendricks as soon as possible. Finally, Thorne had told Brigstocke to make contact with whoever had led the original inquiry into Amin Akhtar’s death and ask the officer to call him immediately.

To his credit, DI Martin Dawes had called back within ten minutes.

‘Did you not think it might be a good idea to let us know what had happened to Amin Akhtar?’ Thorne asked.

‘It wasn’t connected with your manslaughter case.’

‘Just as a courtesy, then.’

Dawes was clearly not the type to give ground. ‘So you always need to know what’s happened to everyone you’ve put away, do you?’