Simon Kernick - The Last 10 Seconds

I was still holding the knife and I lashed out with it, but my attacker was already pulling me away from the gun and with the momentum I already had I went flying forward without making contact. I tripped over Wolfe and went down on my side, rolling over several times and losing my grip on the knife. Ignoring the pain in my ribs, I scrambled to my feet, unable to resist a glance back.

My attacker was standing facing me in the corridor, while Wolfe lay sprawled on his back at his feet. He had a claw hammer in one hand and Wolfe’s Sig in the other. The hammer was stained dark with blood, and as I watched, a drop formed on one edge of the claw before dripping on to the floor. Even in the dim light, I could see who it was. He might have had cuts to his face and head, including what looked like a deep gash in his cheek, but there was still no doubt that it was Andrew Kent. Except this time he no longer looked like the baby-faced young man we’d taken earlier, who’d pleaded his innocence in the back of the van. Now he struck a confident pose, legs apart, the gun pointed towards me, the bloodstained hammer tapping idly against one of his legs, an expression of cold indifference in his eyes.

He pulled the trigger before I had a chance to move, and the corridor exploded with noise. But he was also a little too casual and misjudged the gun’s recoil, so that when it kicked in his hand, the bullet went wide.

This was my cue. I ran straight at the nearest door and, keeping as low as possible, yanked the handle before diving inside as a second bullet whistled past close to my head.

My ears rang from the noise but I could still hear his footfalls behind me. I was back up in an instant, racing across the empty room in the direction of a newish-looking double-glazed window with a handle-opening system, praying it wasn’t locked, because there was no sign of a key. But when I pulled the handle, it didn’t budge. I was trapped.

Desperate times call for desperate measures, but only if you’ve got the nerve, and thankfully I had. I turned and charged back at the door as he came into view, keeping low and bellowing like a bull, hoping to catch him off guard.

It worked. He wasn’t quite fast enough, and by the time the gun went off a third time I’d already slammed into him with all my strength and knocked his gun hand wide, managing to grab it by the wrist. My momentum sent us both flying back across the corridor and straight through the door into the room opposite. I felt the hammer strike me in the small of the back but he couldn’t get enough behind the blow to do me any real damage. The gun went off again as I continued to drive backwards towards the opposite wall, but once again the shot was wide.

Then somehow he managed to pull his gun hand free and dig his heels into the floor, bringing me to a halt. I felt him bring the gun round so it was pointed at my side, but I knocked it away again before he could pull the trigger and, with a final push, tried to knock him off balance.

We took a step back together in a tight, vicious dance, which was when there was a loud crack beneath our feet and, without warning, the floor gave way, sending us flailing through the air.

We hit the floor beneath with a loud thud in a cloud of dust. I landed on top of Kent, the force of the impact sending me flying back off him so that we ended up lying next to each other among pieces of ceiling plaster. Kent wasn’t moving, although the claw hammer still hung loosely from his hand. I could see bits of torn flesh sticking to it, and knew they belonged to the woman I was supposed to be protecting. But there was no time to think about that now. More important was the fact that Kent was no longer holding the gun.

I clambered to my feet and looked round desperately for it in the darkness. It was only a few feet away, but just as I stepped forward to get it there was a roar from behind me and Kent rose from the floor and drove the hammer down at my foot.

I managed to jump out of the way just in time but tripped on a piece of plaster. I fell to my knees but jerked myself round so I was facing him as he leaped on me, a maniacal grin on his savage little baby face, the hammer raised above his head.

He knocked me on to my back and sat astride me, pinning my right arm with his leg as he tried to get into the optimum position for landing a hammer blow. ‘Gonna die now, fuck!’ he hissed, his eyes widening with a sadistic joy.

But I could still move my left arm enough to grab a palm-sized piece of plaster, and before he could bring the hammer down, I threw it in his face.

He reeled back, and I saw that he’d got dust in one of his eyes. Seizing my opportunity, I thrashed around under him with enough force to knock him half off me, then scrambled towards the gun, grabbing it by the barrel just as he righted himself and raised the hammer again.

In one movement, I smashed the butt into his cheek with a loud crack, just as he caught me across the chin with a glancing blow from the hammer.

He fell off me and rolled over, howling in pain. ‘Bastard!’ he screamed, the word sounding stilted, as if he was trying to shout it through pursed lips.

And then, as I stood up and turned the gun on him, he got on to his hands and knees, and the maniacal look disappeared, replaced by a look of injured innocence that was almost angelic. ‘Please don’t hurt me,’ he whispered, the words clearer now. ‘Please. Not in cold blood. I need help for what I’ve done. I can’t help it.’

I was a police officer. How could I kill a man in cold blood? How would I be able to live with myself afterwards? Those were the questions racing through my head as I stood looking down at him, holding the Sig two-handed.

There was a long silence. He looked at me imploringly. I looked back at him. Intensely. Thinking.

And then he sprang at me like an animal, the hammer still in hand, and I pulled the trigger. Again and again, sending him dancing backwards through the gloom, until finally the gun was empty, and Andrew Kent, the Night Creeper, lay dead at my feet.

I stood looking down at him, feeling no satisfaction, simply a sense of relief that it was all over, before letting the empty gun fall from my fingers.

There was one thing still left to do, so I walked over to the staircase and climbed it for the third time that night.

Tyrone Wolfe was lying on his back where I’d last seen him. A large pool of blood had formed beneath his torso where the knife was buried up to the hilt, and his face was pale, almost luminescent in the darkness. But his eyes were open and he was still breathing.

‘Lee. Help her, Sean. Please.’

I forced myself to walk inside the room where Kent had assaulted her, and the first thing I noticed was that her breathing had stopped. My jaw tightened as I looked down at her torn and ruined face. Only a true savage could have inflicted those kinds of injuries on a defenceless woman, and a savage was exactly what the Night Creeper had been. Standing in that filthy room with only the smell of blood and death and grime for company, I felt no satisfaction for killing Kent. I just felt numb, and even though I knew it would be no good, I bent down and checked Lee’s wrist for a pulse, almost relieved that there was nothing there.

When I walked back out, Wolfe lifted his head up with what was clearly a huge effort and asked me if she was all right.

‘I’m sorry,’ I told him, meaning it. ‘She’s dead.’

His face contorted into a mask of complete despair, and he whispered her name again and again, as if by doing so he could somehow undo the terrible damage inflicted that night. Then his body started to shake. ‘I’m so cold,’ he said. ‘I think I’m dying.’

He was, and I didn’t have much time left to say what I needed to say. ‘Why didn’t you shoot me when you had the chance?’ I asked him.