Simon Kernick - Severed

And that woman is here now and as I stare at her, still trying to come to terms with what I'm seeing, her right arm flashes up like a striking snake, the movement so swift it's almost a blur, and this time there's no razor in it but a pistol with silencer attached. I know Leah's going to fire, but, even with the gun pointed at me, I've been hit so hard by the huge and terrible extent of her betrayal that I'm unable to react. Only yesterday I loved this woman. She was the one I genuinely wanted to build a future with. And all the time, all the time… The lie simply refuses to sink in.

But my hesitation's a mistake, because Leah Torness's eyes are utterly devoid of mercy. I see the flash of light, and the shot hisses out of the silencer. I'm knocked sideways and sent spinning. I stumble into the major's body, hit the wall and collapse to the floor, dropping my gun in the process. I've been hit in the shoulder.

The pain is like nothing I've ever experienced. It feels like someone's poured petrol into the wound and set it on fire. I grit my teeth and shut my eyes. I've lost. After coming so close, I've finally lost.

When I open them again, Leah is bent down beside the major. 'It's OK,' I hear her whisper, her voice suddenly full of emotion, reminding me of how she used to talk to me. 'We'll get you help.'

Then she stands above me, the silencer pointing down towards my face. The end of it is barely three feet away.

My mouth goes dry. The pain is roaring through me in waves. After everything I've been through, I have no energy left to fear my fate. When she pulls the trigger again, it'll all be over. I'll be joining Lucas, Ferrie, Snowy and so many other comrades from down the years.

'My father always said you were a good soldier, Tyler, which is why you'll die quickly.'

'Why?' I whisper, and I'm not asking the reason she's going to kill me. That part feels strangely irrelevant. What I want to know is why did she pretend to share so much with me? Why did she let me make love to her? Why did she tear me apart when I'd never done a thing to deserve it? But she doesn't answer, maybe because she can't, and I know it's the end.

I clench my teeth and tense, waiting for the inevitable impact, determined not to close my eyes. Making her watch me in these last seconds, and hunting desperately for any tiny chink of emotion in her eyes to show that somewhere deep down she feels a twinge of regret about what she has to do… but there's nothing.

Nothing at all.

The front door flies off its hinges and lands with a crash on the carpet, and a blinding white light like a lightning strike fills the room. Leah's eyes widen and she stumbles, dazed by the flash grenade, before regaining her footing and staring at the door.

There follows a shout that for the first time actually fills me with relief. 'Armed police! Drop your weapon!'

'Drop your weapon! Drop it now!'

The silencer's still pointed at my face. Is she going to pull the trigger? One last, murderous act of defiance?

But no. In one movement, she swings the gun away from me towards the door, the idea of surrender as alien to her as it was to her father.

This time, however, her luck finally runs out. Two angry bursts of automatic weapon fire shatter the silence, and Leah disappears from view. Just like that. Gone in an instant.

Again, there's that long second of silence when everyone stops to draw breath, and then the shouting and activity start as people pour into the hallway.

Someone leans over me, his face close. 'You're going to be all right, mate,' he says, but the pain is so intense I'm not sure I believe him. He moves aside and calls for medical help. 'This one's been shot as well,' I hear him shout. 'Shoulder wound.'

I no longer care. I'm beginning to black out now, and I'd welcome unconsciousness with open arms if only I could lift them. But my whole body feels like lead. People move across my vision, but they seem to blur into one another like watercolours in the rain. Only one stands out. She has long blonde hair. I squint, try to concentrate my gaze, anxious to see if it's her or not. It's difficult to tell. She has her back to me. And it's too late. I'm going. Going…

Gone. One week later

DI Mike Bolt comes to see me again. I wouldn't say we'd become friends, but it's his third visit and I'm getting quite used to his company. The first time he came with his colleague, DS Mo Khan, and they questioned me under caution, the doctors apparently having said I was fit enough to be interviewed. That was four days ago. Bolt asked me if I wanted the services of a lawyer, and I knew that Adine would kill me if I didn't call her, but for some reason I honestly didn't feel I needed one. You see, I'd got to this position where I knew there was no point not telling the truth. All the lies I'd used to save myself had just made matters worse, and in the end I simply didn't have the energy to keep up the charade. It was time to lay everything on the line and throw myself at the mercy of the forces of law and order, and that's what I did. I told them the whole story as I knew it from beginning to end, adding, for what it was worth, that I was sorry I'd bullshitted them in the first place. I had to be a bit economical with the truth when it came to the fact that I'd killed four people, of course, since, self-defence or not, admitting something like that would have spelled the end for me.

Bolt said that he was pleased I'd seen sense, and he seemed it as well, but he also told me that I was under arrest on suspicion of murder, and that I couldn't leave the hospital.

This wasn't exactly news. For the whole time since I'd come out of the operating theatre, I'd been in a room on my own, well away from any of the hospital's other patients, with a police guard outside the door. Even if I'd wanted to escape, I couldn't have got very far, considering the number of tubes and wires I was hooked up to. To be honest, at no point did the thought cross my mind. I'd had enough activity and excitement to last a lifetime.

The second time, Bolt came on his own. He even brought me a box of wine gums and some grapes, which I thought was a nice gesture. He had a few points that he wanted clarifying. I gave him the information he needed, then asked him some questions of my own. I wanted to know what had happened to Leah, or Alice as her name turned out to be, and he told me that she'd died from gunshot wounds at her father's house, having never regained consciousness. The news still saddened me, but it was also as if a strange, dark chapter in my life had ended, and could now at last be put behind me.

I asked about the major as well, and Bolt answered that, like me, he was still in hospital with gunshot wounds but was going to make a full recovery. He wouldn't give me any further information, citing the fact that investigations were still ongoing, so I let it go at that. Instead we shot the breeze for a little while – about football, of all things. I was sure he was only talking to me to create some sort of camaraderie, but to be honest, I appreciated the company. Because of my situation, the number of visits I get are fairly limited, and people aren't exactly queuing up to see how I'm getting on. My brother's come once, as has my mother, and, to be fair, Adine, but that's pretty much it, and I can't help but brood over the fact that had Lucas still been alive, he would have been here for at least an hour every day, livening the place up, because he was that sort of guy. I never saw that much of him in the last couple of years of his life, maybe once every three months or so for a bite to eat and a few drinks, and I will always regret that I didn't spend more time with him towards the end.

It's a sad but undeniable fact of a soldier's life that comrades die. You're taught to grieve and then to move on. Yet I find it difficult to comprehend that last Friday morning there was a thriving private eye business in Whitechapel staffed by two good friends of mine. Then I paid them a visit, and now that business and those men are no more. It's a bitter cross to have to bear.